How to cut dog's nails!

OK so here we all have to cut our dogs nails at some point, or have the vet or groomer do so.

If you are cutting your own dogs nails, here are some tips and advice on how to do so in an easy and controlled way.
You must be careful not to cut the "quick" in the nail shell, this is the fleshy part of the nail with a vein. If you cut this your dogs nail will bleed and it can be difficult to stop, it is advised to have "quick stop" which is a blood clotting antiseptic powder. If you clip the quick you can quickly apply quick stop which will help stop the bleeding.
you can clearly see  the quick in dogs with pale / transparent nails but it can be very hard to see in dogs with dark or black  nails.

The tip is to hold the dogs feet (like you would pick up a horses foot) grab the paw at the joint and flick upwards so that you are now looking down onto the dogs pad.

Picking the pad up n the way, able's you to see the nails and quick better. it also helps support the weight of elderly or nervous dogs giving you more control. 

You can clearly see the pad, nails and where to cut at this angle. 

You can move the hair around the nail and on a clear nail you will see white and then pink, you must only cut the white parts. On a black nail you can see the nail growing over the fleshy parts of the nail. This is the quick, so I advise to only cut the part of the nail that is hanging over the fleshy or solid part of the nail.

You can see here the white that can be cut and the start of the pink. The pink is the quick.

Here is the nail after been cut, this is a little to short as you can see the quick and pink flesh. I personally like to cut a little less than this.

I like to cut like this, this is Just on the quick, you can see in the centre the pinkish quick coming through but it is not fleshy or raw looking. You can grind the edges to make nail appear shorter if you wish.

You can see when you are getting close to the quick as you will start to see a small round white spot with a smaller black dot in the centre. the white and black dot is the start of the quick.

I hope these little pointers help you out!