I’d made this guide for someone on here, and thought it might be useful for others – sort of to go alongside the foot grooming sticky at the top.
Ok the photos aren’t very good
, however, hopefully you can get an idea
There is more than one way to trim feet, but this is how I was taught; doing it this way, it’s difficult to mess up or injure toes. I trim Charlies feet every 2 weeks to keep them nice and short so there isn’t much hair on the photos. If you cut with the scissors vertically then the shape of the foot is kept; using the scissors horizontally means the shape is lost easier and there is less chance of snipping a toe.
Firstly, with your straight scissors, point down towards the table and cut around the foot
A great tip if he won’t keep his foot that you are cutting down is to lift the other leg (by default the foot being cut has to go down). Charlie also likes to look at what I’m doing, so his ears normally get in the way. He doesn’t normally have a snood on, but if you have a helpful spaniel and the light isn’t good, a snood will help keep any shadows off where you are cutting and ears out of the way.
If you want to shape around the top of the foot then use your thinning scissors, snip, and move, snip and move.
For getting the hair between the pads underneath, use your straight scissors and cut level with the pads. If there are any knots in there, then try and cut them out, but scissors with blunted ends will be useful here (I have a cheap set from pets at home but I never use them).
I was so proud of myself the first time I cut his feet, they looked butchered, but still, I’d done it myself. I’ve been trimming him myself for almost a year now and now his feet look reasonable.
I also found it was much easier to do Charlie’s front feet first (he was a right fidget); with his back feet he fidgeted much less. We have to work in a certain order (he’s more fussy with one of his legs, so that one is done first).
Charlie was a pain to get used to the scissors; I had to just hold them next to his feet and snip (so it made a noise but didn’t cut) and gave him loads of treats, until he let me trim a bit of hair, and so on until he got used to it.
Good luck.
