64

www.pbgv.org

Summer 2014   

I Saber Tails

*

DONATE YOUR VEHICLE and HELP THE 

PBGV HEALTH & RESCUE FOUNDATION!

Now you can donate your unwanted vehicles to PBGV Health & Rescue

Foundation, whether they run or not! The Foundation has partnered with

Donation Line, who will pick up up your vehicle at no charge to you. You

will receive a tax deduction from Foundation. How good is that?

And not just cars –you can donate trucks,

vans, boats, motorcycles, jet skis, RVs, 

snowmobiles and even airplanes! You 

must have clean title. Free towing. 

No hassle. Call 24/7:  

1-877-CARS-4-US (227-7487

) 

and Donation Line will do all the work!

You may also arrange for pickup at

www.donationline.com/pbgvhealthandrescuefoundation.htm.

Either way, a tow company will contact you within two business days to

arrange pickup. PBGV Health & Rescue Foundation will send you a 

donation acknowledgement letter for your tax deduction in 6-8 weeks. 

Hi, I’m Harley! 

We don’t mean your

good car! Donate the

ones you don’t drive

anymore!

Ahoy, there!

I’m Thimble – We’ll 
take the old boats! 

And jet skis too!

Harley is owned

by Pat Koprovic.

Feet 

continued from page 62     The average pet dog gets its

nails clipped a couple of times a year, if it is lucky! Several
factors conspire to make nail cutting a dreaded activity.
With such infrequency, the dog may not be inclined to 
cooperate, making nail clipping into a wrestling match. 
The constant painful stimulus from the long toenails 
hitting the ground sensitizes the nail bed, making it very
uncomfortable for the dog to have its feet handled. Indeed,
when the toes are pushed up or twisted by long nails, the
toe joints can become arthritic and painful as well. 

How to clip with confidence.

We don’t often 

appreciate how much dog toenails are like our own! If you
look at your fingertip, you will see the hard, insensitive nail
laid on top of the living finger. If, for instance, you filed the
top of the “living” portion, it would not hurt, because there
is a layer of keratin, a hard, horn like substance that protects
the nail bed. A dog’s nails are actually pretty similar. The tip
of their finger is “the quick,” which has sensitive nerves and
blood vessels. When you “quick” a dog, making it bleed,
you have essentially nipped off the end of their finger. No
wonder they don’t like it! But no dog ever died from a
quicked toenail, so it is not the end of the world. With 
good technique, you can shorten even ghastly long 
toenails without ever making them bleed.

When toenail length is excessive, the quick grows longer,

protected by the long nail. The goal of therapeutic podiatry
is to remove the protective long nail so that the quick will
recede. The easiest way to do this is to use shallow cuts with
a sharp, small, scissor type nail clipper (Four Paws Super for
Small Animals works well for nearly all dogs), cutting away

the top of the nail. The cuts should be parallel to the quick,
not across it. Whether the nail is dark or light, it is easy to
distinguish between the insensitive nail and the sensitive
finger tip. There is a white and chalky line around the quick,
even easier to see on a dark nail than on a white one.

The quick is shiny and moist — it looks like living tissue.

In most dogs, there is a clear demarcation between them. It
is possible to significantly shorten the toenails and get an
immediate postural response in a single session. Nails need
to be cut every other week to maintain their length. To
shorten the quick, one must cut once a week. Some dogs 
tolerate a rotary grinder like Pedi-Paws, Oster Gentle Paws 
or a dremel better than clippers.

Without the interference of erroneous information from

toenails, a dog can fully rely upon its feet on the ground to
stand straight and move with confidence. 

I

Dr. Shoemaker advises using a scissor type nail clipper to
cut the top and sides of an overgrown nail, not the tip. The
cuts should be parallel to the quick as if you are sharpening
a pencil. The sharp edges may be smoothened using a
Dremel tool with a sanding band. The next week, cut off the
tip of the pencil point and then make additional parallel cuts
to make a new pencil point. This procedure should be re-
peated every week until the nails are short enough that they
no longer produce a "click". After that, the length should be
maintained by the parallel clips every two weeks.

Thimble is owned by

Deborah Savage.