[Hokule'a]

You've gotten great advice so far. Only one of my babies 'hates' getting his nails trimmed so I stand him up at my bathroom sink where he doesn't have much room to wriggle about and has to concentrate on balancing while I lift up one foot at a time. As for knowing when you're close to the quick - I do a small cut and then look at the surface - a black dot will appear in the middle of the cut area when you are close to the quick so you don't want to cut too much past that or it will bleed.