How often do you trim your dogs nails?

Since we live so far from the nearest vet, we combine shopping with visits to the vet.

And since we live so far away, I leave the dog with the vet while we go shopping.

I had her nails trimmed about a month ago and am going to get them trimmed again while she is visiting the vet.

Is this too often?

I think it depends on the dog and the sort of walking they do and what they walk on. Our labrador never seems to need his nails clipping, they must wear down on the rocky paths just enough. Della, the mastiff, had problems with her nails splitting. They either grow faster or, because they are narrower they are not as strong and break rather than wear. We ended up buying a small pair of nail clippers for her and just do a nail or two when they seem to be getting a bit long.
It might have been these ones from wahl which are not very expensive. They have a guard which you can leave in place so as to not take off too much and damage the quick of he nails. They've lasted well - at least 3 years so far.

About once a month sounds reasonable, but as we do individual nails rather than the whole paw, I'm not really sure how often we cut them.

I'm guilty of not trimming my dogs nails as much as I should. Something I need to get into a better schedule of doing. My understanding is that (roughly) a month between trimmings is standard. I think this also depends on your dog's activity level and where they have been.

My little dachshund is much more active than my plott hound and she doesn't start 'tapping' on the wood floors as soon as the hound.

I've not seen any negative effects from not trimming our dog's nails. I file it under the category of things people say you should do, but there's no real evidence that you have to do it in all cases. What happens if you don't do it?

Ross Fischer wrote: What happens if you don't do it?

I can only speak from my experience, but I had a couple older dogs in the past that would exhibit signs of paw pain if their nails were too long. My assumption is the pressure from the nail hitting the ground first instead of the paw pad might create discomfort if they are arthritic.

In the eight years I've had my dog I've trimmed his nails twice. Once was very soon after I got him as he'd been living with someone who kept him in a cage and he didn't get enough exercise to wear them down. Once was quite recently because one of his dew claws had gotten so long it was curling around and began to catch on things as he ran around the place, which obviously hurt him.

I'm still not convinced it was necessary to cut all of them though. But then he's a sheepdog and runs around like a lunatic on fairly hard ground as much as he can which keeps all the claws except the dew claws pretty well under control.

I've noticed different things with different dogs, probably due to foot structure/how the nail is positioned on different breeds.
My whippet ran serious distances on the road with me and people were always saying 'her nails are too long, they need to be cut' and I can guarantee you, they were well worn and on the one white nail you could see that the quick was pretty much right there. Thank goodness for that one nail, since the others were black and some fool might have cut her nail far too short.
My shepherd/pitty had nails that always needed trimming, probably every other month. He would be tapping around and I think it affected the way his foot stood on the ground.
Now the Malinois, his nails are much shorter by nature and we also do some serious road mileage, but he also taps sometimes! I do think it's mostly him dragging his feet though, since he doesn't always do it. The non-center nails tend to grow faster and those I shorten the tiniest bit every few months- maybe 1 mm and that lasts for months. And that is just my preference- I don't like him tapping around in the middle of the night.

One a year each dog visits the vet. Nails are always trimmed then.  We check in between visits. My wife is the official nail trimmer.