Any tips on trimming my dog's nails. They're black and I can't see the quick.

This has some ideas, including a dremel and a spa treatment. You guys could go to the spa and get treated at the same time, how fun!

I take my dog to the groomers. His nails are black also and there’s no way that I’ll risk trimming them.

If you can get the dog to stay put while you do it, you may try the dremel tool, as @troubleinharlem mentioned.

If using regular clippers, the only advice I can say is slow and steady. The more you trim the nails, the more the quick recedes. We had a dog with black nails and I was always very nervous, too. What I did was only take off a bit of the tip at a time, over a period of a few weeks to a month. That should help somewhat, I never did actually cut the quick, thank god.

Also, get yourself a styptic pencil and have that handy in case you do get the quick accidentally.

Thanks, everyone!

A vet once told me that walking your dog on concrete wears down the nails sufficiently, though this won’t work on the dewclaws. Maybe just cut off the very tip. Err on the side of caution.

If you look at the underside of a black nail, very often you can see the quick. It looks like a white (or gray/off-black) line. When it stops, well, that’s where the quick ends.

As @MissAnthrope mentioned, keeping stypic powder or a pencil on hand is a good idea.

Take off the tip a millimeter at a time. As long as the center of the nail looks whitish and powdery you are okay. When it starts to appear solid and get darker you are coming into the quick. If you are going a tiny bit at a time and you nick into the quick it will bleed minimally if you are taking great chunks and you really go into the quick it will bleed like a stuck pig (I have never stuck a pig but I assume that phrase means lots of blood!). If you don’t have styptic power, pepper works very well or actually any talcum powder, flour, etc. that will clump and coagulate the blood.

I hate dremels, it takes 10 times as long and unless you are very careful the friction produces heat and the dog will struggle a lot more than if you just take the clipper and proceed with authority (but only a hair’s width at a time!)

Try getting one of those pedi-paws things…..(I like to call it a pedi-file though, lol)…anyways, my dogs don’t put up a fight when I use it.

@cheebdragon We tried it. It did absolutely nothing!
We also tried a dremel, and it worked all right, but one thing – it makes a horrible smell.

I had a neighbor who had very tough fingernails. He showed me how to peel the edges of the nail back on Fido’s nail, and you could see the quick underneath, so you could cut them properly. I don’t know if you can visualize what I am saying, but it worked.

A groomer will cut them for you for about $10 (more or less).