Foot Trimming

For any of you who do not have Leonbergers, just skip this post. It will be utterly meaningless!

For those of you who stuck around, here are the instructions I sent to Teresa Schlaffer recently about how I trim Zatarain's feet. Feel free to comment if you have any questions. And yes, I know his nails are pretty long. I may be good at trimming the fur, but I have ALWAYS been awful at trimming nails.

Here's what I do (each foot takes about 10 minutes):

I use a pair of hairdresser's scissors for the whole thing.

Lay the dog down on his side and start with the underside. Trim around each foot pad, cutting as short as possible and as close to the skin as possible, including between the pads.

Trim the outside edges to even with the bottom of the foot pad.

Trim upward between the toes, just to the bottom of the nail.

Cut around the face of the foot, making a straight face from the nail upward and creating the shape of the foot that you want.

Pull the hair up between the toes, so that it sticks up over the top of the foot. With the scissors held parallel to the top of the foot, trim the hair that you pulled up down to the surface of the foot, using small cuts to help hide the scissors marks. Push the hair back down between the toes.

Trim any stray spots around the nails or along the sides of the foot until it looks neat.