I am seeing an awful lot of comments talking about how their dog is scared/baby of this and that. Somebody made a comment about how their dog yelps so much, that he has to hide when clipping his dogs nails. You say that getting him into the water was like ripping his nails out. I have two dogs, that I've managed to train myself and these were both behaviors that I was extremely successful with, so hopefully this helps. ve never, ever used negative reinforcement or punishment. I've never hit my dog, used a shock collar, or used a choke collar. I've always used toys, treats, or a good belly rub to reward behaviors that I want him to do. If there is a behavior I don't want him to do, like jump over the couch (like he used to) I just taught him a command like,(over). Now my dogs don't jump OVER anything unless I give them the command, which is rewarded with some tasty oatmeal. I've taught the to dig on command, which has stopped them from digging when I don't want them to and I've taught them to g on command to stop them from growling whe they shouldn't. I basically put a label on a behavior they already did, attached a command, and rewarded the behavior when the dog performed it on cue.

A huge task that I worked on was clipping the dogs nails. Hopefully this helps somebody here on reddit: I first brought the clippers around him ALL the time. If he sniffed it, he got a treat, if he touched it he got a treat, anytime he got close to the clippers, he got a treat. Then I got him use to me touching the tips of his nails. I would rub his belly and back and then just touch the tip of his nails. Not push, not squeeze. Just touch. If he was uncomfortable at any time, I would ease back to just petting his shoulder. Slowly work down until the dogs comfortable with you touching his toe. Then I worked on petting him with the clippers and introducing his claws to different textures. I would pet him then touch the nail with the clippers. If he was uncomfortable, I eased off and back to the previous step. Next, introduced them to the clipping sound, by clipping the prongs off a plastic fork. Then, I introduced the dogs to different pressures on their nails. I would pet the dogs, then squeeze the tip o the nail. Once again, I'd repeat the same reward process until the dogs were completely comfortable. After the dogs were used to the clippers, the sounds, the textures, the pressure, the touching, I eased into clipping the nails. I did one nail at first and then slowly eased into the rest, always backing off I the dogs were uncomfortable ( by uncomfortable, I mean that my dog looked at me funny, started painting, or would move his put his face over his paw to hide it.). It takes a shitload of time to train the dogs but, it makes it so much more worth it in the long run.

Same thing goes with pools, it wasn't that my dog didn't ever "want" to go into the pool. He just didn't have a reason to go in. I had to ease him into the water by finding ways to make him comfortable and give him motivation. The easiest way was to use a ramp into the the water. Start with getting his feet wet. Make it a fun time, and literally, work from the bottom up.

Seriously, if you're an owner and plan on having dogs for the rest of your life, you should read "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor. I found that positive reinforcement is by far the best way to unlock a dogs potential without introducing any negative stimuli.