Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Beca and Mishka on September 2, 2012 at 6:07pm

I use nail caps on Mishka, but not to protect the floor - to protect his nails from dragging on the sidewalk (and bleeding).  I order the XL clear, but I order from the soft paws website.

You take them off by clipping the tip off, which breaks the seal.  

It takes a bit of practice to get them on correctly - do a few runs without any glue to get the hang of putting them on, then start with VERY LITTLE GLUE.  They may fall off the first couple times, but that's better than a glue explosion getting stuck in paw fur. (I may have learned this the hard way, and Mishka may have had some very shaved toes for a couple weeks.)

Our floors are hickory, which is a pretty hard wood.  Dog nails don't seem to affect it at all.  At my bosses' office, the floors are cherry, and they get dented very easily.  I don't think nail caps would have made much of a difference on the cherry, but maybe on medium hardness woods....

Mishka wears them through on concrete eventually, but he scrapes/drags his nails a lot.  I only put the caps on the nails that drag, but I don't think they would wear through on the non-dragging nails.

The only drawbacks I can think of for corgis is that corgis tend to have very thick nails, so if the nails are good and short, the caps don't have as much to grab, and they get a lot of pressure to pop off, since they stick out.  If the nails are longer it isn't such a big problem.  Also, Mishka's nails grow like weeds - I have to trim every week to keep the quicks from growing way out.  Replacing a full set of nail caps once a week would get expensive for him.

Definitely worth trying, though.  Also a couple other things to try are putting small rugs in takeoff and landing zones - wherever the dogs tend to dig in so they can get going.  I keep latex-backed rugs at the foot of the stairs and the top of the stairs, in front of doors, and at the curves of the frap circuit.  Also keeps them from sliding out and getting injured.

Let us know how it goes!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lilo Bandit & Koda's mom Shannon on September 2, 2012 at 8:07pm

Thank you for all of the information, you told me exactly what i needed to know :) They seem to sell the same ones on eBay for much much cheaper. With 3 dogs I just didn't want to buy the soft paws as they are so expensive. I got 20 caps plus adhesive for $1.48 including shipping on eBay. I figure even if they of cheaper quality I can afford to replace them more often. I am hoping they work pretty well. I have various area rugs down, but they run a huge circle path and don't have a way to cover the whole area they dig into. I have been keeping them off of the floors for the last month, but they need to run free again

• ▶ Reply