IMO, it is way less traumatic to remove them when they are only a few days old then to wait to see if they end up with a torn one. I had one dog that had rear dew claws as an adult, I always worried about him getting them hung up on something, ended up getting one caught on something in the field, tore it and we had it removed to speed healing and prevent a reoccurance. I think that the vet tech had fun wrapping her up.

Somewhere I have pictures of her after her surgery, little red heeler with both hind legs wrapped up to the hock in red vet wrap with perfectly spaced white tape so that they made candy stripes. I had one female out of a litter of 7 that had rears, the rest had none, for some reason I just didn't notice her rear dew claws until she was too old for simple removal. With ones that are connected I take them to the vet when they are under a week, he charges a nominal fee (I think it was $4.00 a pup) as opposed to the cost when they are 8 weeks old, at that point it turns into a surgery. When he was about 48 hours old I snipped it with the nail clippers, no noise from him and only one drop of blood. The last one was Ricky, he had only one on one of his hind legs, it was disconnected only held by skin. Most of our dogs are born without the rears but every now and then we have one that has them.

Claws by Ricky Sides