Cocker Maggie & Co

Weather you want a professional groomer to groom your spaniel or if you want to do the hard work your self, there will be parts of the everyday care taking of your dog, you have to be able to do your self. At least if you want to make life easy for you and your dog. One of these things is the trimming of the paws.

In the breed description of the Cocker Spaniel it says they should have “cat like feet”. This is basically a description of how the bone structure in the feet should be like. It might sound strange, but it means that the feet should be tight, it shouldn’t be flat and it should be perfectly round. You could in some ways compare it to a human foot, where you don’t want flat feet as this potentially could affect your posture and potentially damage the rest of your body. Looking at the Cocker Spaniel as a working dog, it is naturally important with a healthy and strong body, also the paws.

So the “cat feet” is not only relevant when it comes to bone structure, but it also gives you the guiding line for how to trim the feet. Here you have the steps I take, when trimming the feet.

1. I start of by clipping of the hair in between the paw pads. My ultimate tip for you here, is to lay your dog down on it’s side. This is so much more relaxing than if standing – both for you and the dog. If there is a lot of hair start of by clipping the hair in alignment with the paw pads, so you’ll be able to see what you are working with.
2. Here after you should be careful, working with a sharp scissor and with the soft paw pads.. Make sure you don’t cut in them! But try to clip of the hair in between the the paw pads, always keeping the scissor level with the paw pads, never pointing the scissor to the paw. Check if there are small knots, tangles or anything between the paws pads. If there is anything you should remove it, as it would be like walking with a stone in the shoe for the dog.
3. Now you have clipped all of the hair off under the feet, make the dog stand up again. Once the dog is standing, you can start clipping of the hair around the feet. In my opinion, you should clip off enough, so you can see the dogs nails and they should be free of hair. Try to clip the paw in a nice round shape.
4. The finishing work very much depends on the hair structure on your dog as well as the amounts of it. For some it will be enough to clip the hair of under the and around the paw, but if they have a thick layer of hair, you might need to use the thinner scissor on top of the paw as well.

Now, your dog has happy feet and you’ll have a cleaner home. Isn’t that win/win?