The Calming Cap

Your pet getting his or her nails trimmed can be pretty traumatic. If they are uncooperative, which most of them are, our techs have to restrain the pet, sometimes hold them down or muzzle, just to get the job done. It’s stressful on our technicians, because they really want to use a little restraint as possible, and it’s stressful on the pet, because who likes being restrained? It can induce panic and make the next nail trim even more difficult.

Recently, one of our technicians attended an animal behavior seminar. One of the products she came back with is called the Calming Cap. Gromit models it for you below.

Gromit is a friendly dog who is quite high energy. He was in to our office, and when the techs led him into the OR to get him up on the table, he started barking at a cage that didn’t have an animal in it. They pulled him away from the cage, and he was very excited to say hello to everybody, but was too wiggly to allow for a safe nail trim. The technicians put the Calming Cap on him, and he immediately froze in his tracks! They put him on the table, and as you can see from the picture, used minimal restraint on his body. The nail trim was done very quickly, and Gromit just stood there, not resisting at all. He was put back on the floor, the Cap was removed, and he immediately unfroze, going back to his wiggly, gregarious self. It was a truly amazing sight to see; I couldn’t believe this thing actually worked right before my eyes.

The Calming Cap is not for everyone. Another dog was in last week that tolerated the cap at first, but started to get upset that he could not see, so the cap was removed at the first sign of panic. We will never force a Calming Cap on; we will always listen to the animal’s body language and if the procedure is too stressful, we will not continue. Your pet is always in caring hands at Rau.

Thanks so much to Gromit’s people for allowing us to use his picture and tell his story!