What would cause a dog to lose it s toe nails?

I tried to clip a dog's nails for a friend and one fell off. I did not even get to clip the nail it just fell off. My friend is taking the dog to a vet but until my friend can get the dog to the vet we were wondering what is wrong.

Sometimes the nails get too long and just the pet walking on the nail causes damage to the nail bed. Then the nail gets loose or can even fall out. I'll bet the vet will be able to tell you for sure.

Good luck! :)

This infromation is off of http://www.oaklandvh.com/showpracfaq.cfm...

This is a common, painful injury in dogs. The outer nail sheath protects the inner portion, which contains blood vessels and nerves. Pain is involved when the exposed nail bed contacts things.

You may wish to have your dog seen by a veterinarian if the damaged nail bothers your dog or if it becomes red and swollen. Occasionally, these injuries need to be bandaged so that the pet does not lick and irritate the affected area. Sometimes the nail bed in such injuries becomes infected and may require antibiotics.

You may want to read this article in the VetCentric Knowledgebase: "Can I use human triple antibiotic ointment on my dog?" Please go to www.vetcentric.com, then go to Knowledgebase and enter the title into the search box. You may also enter the keywords "claw" and "nail" into the search box to find related articles.

To help prevent this from happening in the future, be sure to keep your dog's nails trimmed neatly. Your veterinarian or groomer can either perform this for you or show you how you can do it at home.

No telling, this is a mystery to me. I have never heard of this happening.

There could have been damage to the nail bed and the nail itself or the dog could have some type of fungal infection of the nail bed. Check the nail bed and the actual toe pads for anything unusual looking and that might help solve the mystery. Also check the 2 nails on either side of the damaged one for injury or infection.

My dog slightly split his nail at the root from running and his nails are actually very short, but it can still happen. The vet put him on antibiotics and pain meds and we wanted to wait it out and see if it healed on it's own since it didn't bleed much, but it reopened 2 weeks later on another jog and we had to have the nail removed. It will grow back, but the vet said it may grow back crooked. I'd def. get him to the vet to make sure it does not get infected and the vet will make the call on if the rest of the nail needs to be removed. Good Luck. Poor guy, I know it was very painful for our dog when it happened.

It could be an infection beneath the toenails, some dogs bite off the nails. Also it might be another illness not related but should consult a VET

He could have just snagged it on something, and when you messed with it, it came off. Theres nothing you can do about it, but his "quick", the part of the nail that bleeds, could bleed ALOT. So just take him to the vet and have them look at it.