Like most of you, I have to fight with my dog in order to trim his nails down. I'm always looking for a way to make it easier on both him, and myself, and this nail grinder definitely helps.
In the box, you get the nail grinder itself, a USB type a to micro b cable for charging, and a very unimpressive instruction manual.
I want to start off by getting the one negative out of the way. The charging cable. I detest a micro b USB charging cable because they are prone to break easily, and they wear out quickly. No product being sold in 2024 should be using this charging cable. The standard should be USB type-c at this point, and I have removed one star from this review because of the inferior charge cable which will likely need to be replaced often as they break extremely easily.
The grinding tool itself is amazing. It has an LED display which allows you to see the relative speed that the grinding wheel is spinning, the battery, as well as the status of charge as it's charging. There are three buttons on the front. The top button is for the light, the the top button is for the double light, the middle button is to power the grinding wheel on or turn it off, and the bottom button is to adjust the speed of the grinding wheel.
The grinding wheel itself has a guard on it for different size claws, so you have more precise control when grinding down your dog's toenail.
The two small LED lights are kind of hit and miss. They set off to the side and with certain grinding sections with the guard, it can be a little difficult to see what you're doing because the light doesn't light things up directly. What they needed to do to fix this would have been to have four lights instead of two in the shape of a plus symbol. All straight across from each other.
I do wish there was some sort of setting that would allow you to lock the power button so you couldn't accidentally turn this off. I found a couple different times my thumb or part of my hand would end up hitting the power button by mistake as I was using it and it would shut the nail grinder off. It's a small gripe, but one that is worth mentioning as it can cause issues and frustration if it happens often.
My first use with this was a sort of unique one. My dog has sensitive feet and he tends to jerk them back if they are even lightly touched by anything. This causing his toes to vibrate was a unique experience for him I think. He resisted heavily at first, but once he realized what was going on he calmed down and laid there to let me file his nails down. I set the speed as high as it goes which is 9000 and it trimmed through his claws super fast. My dog is a German Shepherd / Rottweiler mix, so he has big thick black claws. I didn't spend any more than 15 to 20 seconds per claw with the exception of one claw that had a splintered toenail. With that one, I couldn't use the guard in order to trim it down as the splinter toenail wasn't sturdy enough to grind like I could with the others. Thankfully because the guard comes off I was able to hold his claw in place while going around the damaged parts with the grinding wheel free hand. This allowed me to trim down slightly, but not deep enough to go into the quick.
One thing I will note is when you are trimming your dog's nails, you may smell a slight burning sent in the air, this is going to happen regardless because there's the grinding wheel is spending so fast that it is heating up the claw itself. This does not hurt the animals as far as I can tell, it just stinks a little bit. As long as you don't go too deep and close to the quick, it should be perfectly fine.
Overall, the price is a little high but I think this is a good tool to have if you're someone who regularly has to take your pets to the groomer to get their nails done. This is quick and easy, and something you can do at home. Your dog will probably feel more comfortable letting you do it compared to a stranger since they know you, and that's one of the best pieces of mind with it all. Keeping your pet as stress free as possible.
