Bruno’s Pedicure

We wanted Bruno to be looking his finest for the move so he got  a cage clean and his nails trimmed. There is some discrepancy as to whether or not you are supposed to trim your hedgehog’s nails, but we do because they get extraordinarily long. He tends to get them stuck while running, so we trim them so he doesn’t rip them off his feet.  Supposedly they are  bite them themselves but he never has (maybe his mom never taught him proper grooming habits).

Getting to a hedgehogs nails is an entirely different issue. Since he’s grumpy he will ball up with his spikes out. You basically have to fish for a paw, avoid his frantic nips and hold firmly while you cut. We use our nail clippers, and just like you would a dog, trim just the ends, to miss the sensitive nerves that grow up the nail. Its extremely hard to hold him still so it must be done quickly.

Afterwards he gets a kind pat from his “daddy” to console him for the stress. Unfortunately petting and social interaction only stress him out more.

After that I BEGGED charley to help me with a shot I had been wanting to get. Charley didn’t want to inflict further stress on his beloved creature so he agreed that we could try it briefly with no repeated attempts if Bruno wasn’t cooperative. One of Bruno in a red party hat. This was no easy task and it failed tremendously but we will try again when Bruno isn’t as angry. The already flustered hedgehog wasn’t easy to calm down and didn’t take to being put in full light and forced to wear a hat.

Charley attempted to place him on my white box set beside the window to bounce the light on all sides of him. The second he had his hat on, it was shaken off and he zoomed to hide away from my desired shooting location. I am going to have to try again at a later date.

Hat placement:

Hat displacement:

the . 03 seconds that he kept the hat on that wasn’t on the white board:

To bad I don’t score awesome picture points just for trying.