Monday, April 13, 2009

Saturday Evening Torture

I walked past my bedroom on Saturday night and happened upon this adorable scene. Grace loves to snuggle with Ian. My mind was not on such warm and cuddly thoughts, however. I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to do a sneak attack on Grace's numerous dew claws with the guillotine cutters.

Since Grace is half Great Pyrenees she has been blessed with two dew claws on each of her hind legs. She shares this trait with Norwegian Lundehunds, Icelandic Sheepdogs, and Anatolians. Many dog breeds have only one dew claw on each front leg and zero in back, so I have the fun job of cutting six dew claws on a reluctant dog every 4-6 weeks.

Another of Grace's unique features is that she only has a one clear dew claw. The rest are black and gray which make it impossible to see the quick which means I sometimes cut too high, right through a vein- ouch! Grace commonly uses her front dew claws to grip a rawhide while chewing, but her rear dew claws are essentially useless- they mostly just dangle off the insides of her rear legs like some kind of strange accessory. We could have them removed, but that's expensive and would be too much like plastic surgery- unnecessary.

Here she is looking rather incensed after the torture session had concluded. As if I get pleasure from this act. I guess the next time I do this I'll also be trimming the nails of a wiggly baby- double the fun!

1 comment:

  1. If you look close in the mirror of the last photo you can see Cara smiling with her evil grin after she just finished torturing our poor doggy. :)

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