Dogs Nails

Question
Hi Karen,
I am hoping you may be able to help me or give me some suggestions in relation to my dogs nails.
My dog is 4 years old, cross bred cocker spaniel with a miniature jack Russell. He is a house dog.
At the begriming of May I took him to the vet as his nails were getting very long and I wanted them trimmed ( this was never done before). He also had one nail that had broke at the top of the nail (the part beside the paw). At the break of the nail there was blood and you could see it was hurting him.
The vet examined him and trimmed the nails he could. He said he couldn't trim or pull the broken nail as it would bleed too much and he was afraid he would damage nerves. He also said there was a few more nails that looked like they may go the same way.
He gave the dog an antibiotic (in case of infection# and said that the nail would come off in its own time. He said the dog looked well and looked like he was well looked after.
The nail came off some days later and indeed some more have followed suit.
I can also see that there are a few more nails that may also come off. They start the same; breaking at the top of the nail near the paw and slowly coming off, and intermittent bleeding.
I am wondering if you think he could be a lacking in calcium? Should I give the dog some kind of supplement? Have you heard of this before?
Do you feel I should bring him back to the vet? #the reason I haven't to date is because when he isn't able to pull or trim it, I didn't see the point).
Any advice you could give me would be well appreciated.
Many thanks,
Edwina.

Answer
An occasional broken toenail is not abnormal, particularly in a dog whose nails have never been cut, but what you are describing is not at all normal. Normal nails do not suddenly start breaking off one-by-one, particularly in the same way. It generally takes some sort of trauma for a dog to break a nail... even overgrown ones.

Personally, I do not agree with your vet leaving that partially broken nail, as it could have become a huge source for infection. I would have cut it off (yes, it would have hurt), put something on it to stop the bleeding, and then bandaged the foot. The dog could have been sedated, if necessary. The antibiotics were a sound move on your vet's part.

Here is an excellent page on various nail conditions. http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/grooming/nailconditions.htm Perhaps one of these will sound a bit like your dog. Some possibilities to consider are immune-mediated diseases such as lupus, diabetes, Cushing's Disease, hypothyroidism, or bacterial or fungal infections (read down near bottom of page). I feel your dog needs to have a thorough examination and blood workup by a veterinarian to get to the source of your dog's problem, but I would go for a second opinion from a DIFFERENT vet.

You should also be trimming your dog's nails once a week to keep them reasonably short. I highly recommmend the Peticure Elite for trimming nails. http://www.petco.com/product/110062/Peticure-Elite-To-As-Seen-on-TV.aspx Just be sure you don't charge that battery for longer than three hours or so (read the directions).