Posts made by Derwood

Willy - Willy Billy
Vixen - Vixie - black lightning - Vixen Marie
Abby - Tidbit - Squeaky Toy

I've been considering trying a muzzle. I may go ahead and get one at least to try it out.

I don't know if he would hold a grudge or not. Aside from making him go out during rain storms and not letting him under the covers some times to sleep, I've never done anything to make him distrust me.

The abuse part is sad, because other than this one issue he is the sweetest, most lovable guys you could ever meet.
He grooms my 8 month old grandson, and loves just about anyone. When people come over to visit, he sits next to them and then leans on them because he loves being around people so much.

Distracting him with his favorite treats (beggin strips) doesn't work. As soon as his paw is brought near the clippers he gets aggressive.
We even tried human food, which he prizes more than anything..

We currently have 3 dogs in our home.

A 1 year old female Basenji/Hokkaido mix (Vixen), a 1 year old Female Basenji that we're fostering for BRAT (Abby), and our 9 year old male Basenji (Willy).

We rescued Willy about 4 years ago through a co-worker of mine that owns basenjis of his own and fosters as well. When we got him, we were told that Willy's previous owners had abused him by dangling him upside down by his paws. So, we were told to be careful about his paws, and that he was extra sensitive about anyone grabbing at them.

Well, as you can imagine, this makes things difficult in keeping his nails trimmed. He's normally a very sweet boy that has never shown any aggression. We can hold his paws now that we've built up trust, but if we're holding the nail trimmer, he gets very nasty and bites at whoever holds his paw. One time we tried taking him to Petsmart for them to do the trimming, and they couldn't do it because he made so much noise in the store that people were coming over to see what they were doing to the poor thing.
We've been taking him to our vet so they can properly restrain him, but that gets expensive over time.

I'm wondering if anyone can give me any suggestions on how I might be able to do it. Should I invest in a muzzle to keep him from biting? Will that even work? Or, is there something else I could be doing?

Oh, he doesn't like the dremel much either…