Hell on 4 Paws by Bailey Gwen

Author:Bailey, Gwen [Bailey, Gwen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: PET004000
Publisher: Hamlyn
Published: 2010-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Serious solutions

I’D JUST arrived at Grant’s house and was putting my bag and keys down in the kitchen when I saw a strange sight through the window. Grant and Holly were hunched over a wriggling Chesapeake in the garden. It looked as though they were trying to pin her down, a very risky procedure with Chesil and, I thought, unusually brave for them. She was resisting but not aggressively, and they were taking it in turns to order her to ‘Keep still, Chesil!’ Neighbours observing the spectacle would have wondered what form of strange torture we had cooked up for her now.

Going out into the garden, I could see that Holly had a bag of treats and was shovelling them into Chesil’s mouth to keep her occupied, while Grant was clipping her nails as fast as he dared. They were both partially leaning on her to keep her from getting up and, when Holly ran out of the treats she held in her hand, there was furious wriggling from Chesil in her attempts to get free while Holly got more from the bag.

‘Keep feeding her, Holly,’ Grant yelled as he struggled to keep hold of Chesil’s paw and clip another nail before she bit him. Her face was turned towards his hand and her nose was wrinkled into a snarl.

‘I am!’ protested Holly as she distracted Chesil away from his hand and the clippers with the next mound of treats.

Finally it was all over. Chesil was released and she sprang up, shaking herself as if to remove the indignity of it all. Grant and Holly looked exhausted, frazzled and relieved that it was all over.

Cutting Spider’s nails was a very different affair. He would lie on the sofa while I gently cut the tips off his huge claws. He has black nails and, although I have had lots of experience with cutting dog’s nails, I was wary of clipping too much and cutting the quick with all its nerves and blood vessels, so I did it often and just took a little bit off at a time. Many owners prefer to take their dogs to vets or other professionals for nail-clipping but, depending on who does it, it can be a frightening and unnerving experience for dogs to be manhandled in such a way by strangers. For this reason, I preferred to do it myself. No fuss, no drama. I’d been doing it all his life and it held no fear for Spider – he lay still, quiet and relaxed. We had to find a better solution for Chesil.

The best way would have been to gradually desensitize her to having her paws held, then to the feel of the clippers pressed against them, and finally the pressure of the painless cutting action, all made easier with the generous use of treats to change the emotion from fear to pleasure. All very well in theory but time raced by and I noticed, one day, that her nails were now long again and we hadn’t done any work with her.

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