Nail trimming for Labradors is a necessary evil: Long nails can break and tear, they make it difficult to walk on slick floors, and lengthy talon-like nails cause a dog’s paw to flatten unnaturally. What makes nail trimming such a challenge for many dog owners is that Labs do not like to have their paws held. To get your dog to allow you to hold his paw and trim his nails may take quite a bit of practice. For this reason, it’s important to practice trimming nails as often as possible as early as possible, and to keep the event positive.

Practice Makes Perfect

Obviously, you can’t trim your Lab’s nails every day, so part of the issue of acclimating your puppy or adult to nail clipping is that it’s hard to get in practice time. Depending on how quickly your Labrador’s nails grow, nail trimming could be a chore that’s necessary every three to four weeks or every couple of months. Also, in the early stages of nail trimming, you’re dealing with a wiggly puppy or possibly a very apprehensive adult dog, so you don’t want to make a mistake.

Don’t make a big deal out of the event – treat it casually. If you say, “Oh, you poor dear,” when your Lab puppy cries and tries to wriggle from your grasp, you’ve just confirmed to him that he should be trying to escape. Rather than confirm his suspicions, exude confidence by speaking and acting as if nail trimming is no big deal.

You want to ease your Labrador into the event gradually. A way to solve the problem is through nail taps. When your Labrador is fairly settled, gently hold a paw and tap a nail lightly with the clippers. Don’t cut the nail yet. Give him a treat and praise him. Tap another nail lightly. Give him a treat and praise him again. This is a fun thing to do. Try to tap the nails on one paw at a session and then maybe two paws.

If after several days of the toe-tapping “game” your Lab is tolerating this touching exercise well, try to hold one of his paws a little longer. Don’t get in an argument about it, but work on a getting a slightly longer “hold”. Treat for good behavior and praise him. While you’re working on extending the light hold to a finger paw grip, work to increase the toenail tap to a slight “grasp” with the clippers, as if you were trying to find the right place to trim the nail. Go from nail to nails and remember to praise and treat him for being a good boy.

Making the Actual Clip

Once your Labrador Retriever is comfortable with you holding his nails and the pressure of the nail clippers, trim a nail! If you’ve got a yellow Lab, you may have clear nails where you can actually see the pink-colored “quick”, which is the blood supply of the nail.

To make the cut, hold the nail so you can see the side of it clearly. Place the clipper so that it is nearly to the tip of the quick. It is better to err on the side of making too little of a cut and trimming the nail a second time (or filing it) than to cut into the quick (it’s a bloody mess, literally) or to get too close to the quick (some dogs are very sensitive and will react to a “near” quick).

If this trim goes well, continue with another nail or go back to holding the paw and simply “grasp” the other nails. Reward your Labrador! He did really well. With puppies and adults, it’s okay to trim one nail a day (if you can remember which nail you did) or one paw a day until the Labrador gets comfortable with nail trimming.

Remember, it’s all about building positive, good experiences. If you don’t quick him and he gets lots of treats and attention for being still, it won’t be too long before he will tolerate nail trimming quite well.

The Dreaded Black Toenail

Most Labrador Retrievers don’t have clear nails. They have solid black or mostly black nails. This is truly a challenge. You can’t possibly see where the quick ends. There is a trick, however.

Turn your Labrador’s paw over so you can see the bottom of the nail. If you look closely, you will see an oval-shaped structure. This oval indicates where the quick is. To trim the black nail, look for this oval and make your cut slightly past it toward the nail tip. Once you have one nail cut, you can usually turn the paw back over and trim the same amount from each of the remaining nails.

Choosing Nail Clippers

When it comes to choosing nail clippers, look for a sharp, sturdy clipper that cuts the nail cleanly (a dull blade will crush the nail) in a scissors-like motion. Puppies can get by with a medium-weight nail clipper, but the adult Labrador has such thick, tough nails, you’ll eventually need to invest in the best, heavy-duty clipper you can find.  Nail trimmers can sometimes leave jagged, sharp edges. To smooth out rough nail edges, you can use a sturdy nail file or a grinder that is made expressly for trimming and smoothing nails.