[Otter]

The best tip I ever received was to not cheap out on shears and for the feet find a small pair that come to a point. That's hard to find especially left handed. The reason to have pointed shears is so that you can easily get under the fur and go up and over the claws/nail to get a nice line. I finally found a company that would sell the scissors with a custom ground point.

The first, second, and last image below show my scissors that I primarily use on the feet. They come to a point.
These images are different stages of being done.

 

[Otter]

but my opinion is that how you trim the feet makes a big huge difference in the final product.

I agree. My wording was not great. I am a believer in having the correct tool in hand for the task though. It took a while to find a pair of small scissors that fit my left hand and work well for me when it comes to doing the feet. I bought them from sharpshopguy dot com a couple or three years ago. I think they are the 4420 model. About $100 as I recall. My other shears are somewhere between cheap and a little bit more than cheap. Just middle of the road stuff. A couple are Geib and I probably didn't spend much money on them. The first two pair I bought were in 1997 and still work.

This is a hobby for me. I groom my 3 girls (2 are nearing the end of their journey with cancer - Pebbles and Sandy) and our boy is still shown so I'm not allowed to groom him .