# Dew claws



## Griggsberry (Feb 13, 2019)

I am a second time havanese owner and have a nine week old pup. We docked our older havanese’s dew claws and I am wondering what other people are doing. It was a big surgery for him at the same time he was neutered.


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## Tere (Oct 17, 2018)

My breeder says she does them when they just wee puppies, before they ever go home. She said that it is nothing to do it then.
My last dog had them and it was no problem ever, except that some groomers would forget to trim them.
One of my dogs had problems with them when he got one caught badly on a blanket. I asked the vet about removing them and yes, he said it was a big deal to do. I never did and he used to snag the front ones on everything.
So unless they bothered your baby, I'd probably just let them be.


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

Our Hav had them removed when he was very tiny, too, long before he came home.


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## Melissa Brill (Feb 22, 2017)

We raised Dalmatians when we were kids and we did the dew claws when they were tiny tiny. I got my first 'own' dog (Dalmatian) when I was an adult and she had her dew claws. I asked the vet about removing them and she said that there are two kinds - ones that are very tightly connected and others that are fairly loose. My dogs were very tight (basically another toe but on the side, bone/ joint/ all of it) and she did not recommend removing them, but if they had been loose/ floppy then she would have.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

I, personally, would not buy a dog without dew claws, but I do performance sports, and it has been proven that dogs who run agility and other sports without dew claws have more carpus injuries and arthritis than those with intact dew claws.

That said, for the average pet dog, it probably doesn't matter that much. However, there is a BIG difference between neonate removal of dew claws, before bone is fully formed and it is quite a simple procedure, and doing it at neutering age. I don't buy into it being "painless" even as neonates... The babies DO cry when it is done, but they also get over it very quickly when returned to mom. But it is a fairly major surgery in an adolescent dog, and something I would never even consider unless it was required because of an injury.


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