Urgent advice about dew claw removal

Hi. Sorry about the short notice but I'm not very organised at the moment. Lady is going into be spayed in the morning and when she was last seen by the vet he suggested that she have her dew claws removed at the same time. When we had our old english sheepdog's removed we had a terrible time afterward (won't go into details). What I'm wondering is what the rest of you think about this? Any and all advice would be really appreciated. TIA

No, if you were going to do it, it's done when they are newborns. At this point, it's like taking off a toenail. I don't even do newborns, there have been stories about litters going into shock and dying from it, so that scared me! it's not worth the occasional clipping of it to take that risk.

Mine all have their dewclaws and I've never had a single problem though you do need to remember to trim those nails too from time to time. Some breeders like to take them off but as Nancy says, it is done when they are very small, generally without any anaesthetic -- there still seems to be a belief (as their used to be with circumcisions ) that 'babies don't feel anything'.

Every now and then you hear of a problem with dewclaws but it seems very rare to have a problem and automatically removing them seems to me at least a rather harsh and conservative approach -- especially as bizarrely, on some breeds they are supposed to be left on (like pyrenees).

I heard about the same stories that Nancy has, so the last few litters we've had have their dews. We've had one pup that had her one rear dew claw removed--it wasn't really connected to anything. If I had a dog that was "in the field" -- I'd have them removed.

The vet mentioned that he thought Lady's were quite prominent but I don't really think they are but not sure.

I wouldn't do it either. I think the last litter we had dew claws removed on was at least 5 years ago. I have never personally heard of anyone having a problem with leaving the dew claws on.

Last week Freckles was sitting with one front paw tucked kind of under his chin, I thought he'd gotten hair caught in his collar but NO it was his dewclaw caught in the ring of his collar LOL. All I could think of was "What's next?" Course he was scheduled for nail clipping in 2 days time. The look on his face was priceless and I was his "savior" for the rest of the day .

Phew... Mya will be spayed soon and I was thinking about getting the dew claw snipped! I'm glad I read this.

I have to admit that I was stumped about dew claws - had to look them up on Wikipedia. All four of my Cavaliers have their dew claws. I have never heard of them being removed and none of my babies has ever had a problem with them.
Bev, along with Oliver (7-bl); Riley (5-b&t); Madison (4-ruby); and Oz (1-tri)

Dew claws are usually removed between day 2 and day 4 of the pups lives. Some breeds they are a requirement for the standard. Some have front dews, some back dews, some dogs have double dewclaws. Many dewclaws are just bits of skin without much of any structure holding them on.
In field dogs it is usually recommended that they be taken off, because in the swamps and fields they can snag on numerous things and get torn off. If they get torn off, it is a bloody mess.
In cavaliers, some take them off (usually they only have front dew claws) because they can be forgotten or difficult to trim the nail. I was told to have them removed, so my first few litters we did. The pups seemed lethargic for a day or two after and this made me very nervous. Then I heard of pups that got infections at the amputation site and pups that seemed to just fade away right after the procedure. So I stopped taking them off.

I would think they would definitely go into shock from the removal -- it is like taking off a full joint of a finger (the same goes for declawing cats, which removes the whole end joint and is not permitted by vets organisations in the UK and Ireland).

It if were a process treated more as a proper surgical procedure that would probably make it a lot better all around but certainly the vast majority of dogs never seem to have any problem at all with dewclaws. I do know people though who have had their dogs catch them and it isn't a pleasant sight but then neither are lots of accidents that can happen.