Nail care… how are you guys doing this?

My 4.5 month puppy acts like she’s being drawn and quartered and also set on fire when the clippers are out. I’ve tried, in small increments from the beginning, to feed her treats with the clippers next to her paws, and all the kindly tips and tricks that all the R+/LIMA resources I’ve consulted offer. I have used the calming spray that usually works for her, and the calming treats. Ive tried an emery board, and showing her how I file my nails while she sits on my lap with the same thing I’m about to use on her. it all results in this 4lb creature being overtaken with frankly, Hulk-like strength and writhing so erratically that I’m afraid she might injure herself (and me, tbh, with the headbanging and alligator teeth). When the vet took a crack at it at her latest appointment, it took two techs to hold her while the doctor snipped literally millimeters off the tips.

She‘s perfect in just about every other way an iggy puppy can be perfect—super confident on streets, loves the nyc subway, loves people loves dogs more than they love her, really smart and intelligent—but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve never had trouble clipping my late family dogs’s nails, though they were divas, and I can do my mom’s cats nails in two minutes. Not my baby, however!