Sore Pads

[MagicGirl]

Has anyone had any experience with sore pads on their dogs. How to help them heal and how to toughen them up? Magic has been helping me track cattle this fall and has been doing great. No problems till this weekend. We had several long hard pushes to the corrals and the cows seemed to stick to the gravel roads instead of going cross counrty through the woods like usual.

Well after we quit for the day yesterday she was limping. She show no sign of hurting before this. (adrenialine(spelling???)) Today she can hardly walk. The poor thing I feel really bad. I did talk to the vet, but wanted to know what other people do to treat and or prevent.

Not taking her is not an option she loves it.

[btrent]

I have two suggestions:

 

(1) dog booties from http://www.dogbooties.com/

This is a very good company with good service. If you call them and tell them what type of dog you are buying them for and what type of terrain, they will help you with picking out size/fabric.

 

(2) paint the feet daily or more than once daily with tincture of benzoin. This is a product you can find in the dental/oral care section of any good pharmacy. It is cheap and safe to use. That is the main ingredient in many of the tuff-foot preparations without all the voodoo/nasty stuff.

 

good luck,

 

--Billy

[MagicGirl]

I have two suggestions:

 

(1) dog booties from http://www.dogbooties.com/

This is a very good company with good service. If you call them and tell them what type of dog you are buying them for and what type of terrain, they will help you with picking out size/fabric.

 

(2) paint the feet daily or more than once daily with tincture of benzoin. This is a product you can find in the dental/oral care section of any good pharmacy. It is cheap and safe to use. That is the main ingredient in many of the tuff-foot preparations without all the voodoo/nasty stuff.

 

good luck,

 

--Billy

 

 

Thanks Billy, I have some booties from a past dog that need them for her back feet when she could not walk. (protected her feet when the would drag the ground) I am afraid they would not stay on, some of the terrain is not very nice some times. Wooded and Logged clear cut areas, alot of slash laying around.

 

The vet has me coating her pads with some kind of deluted iodine ( guess I should ask what kind. Very strong even deluted makes my eyes water) It is suppose to treat the one blistered paw and help toughen them. I am putting it on all 4 pads right now.

 

Have you heard of a product called Pad Heal. It is suppose to heal and condition the pad. This is the ingredients: Raw linseed oil, Spirits of Turpentine, Pure Menhadin Oil, Balsam of Fir, Bees Wax, Oil of Vitriol.

 

I was hoping that some one with working dogs might have something they use and coud recommed. I will look into your idea about the tincture of benzoin.

 

Thanks so much,

 

Lorna

[OurBoys]

Lorna,

 

I don't remember who it was or which thread it was but they did mention Pad Heal. I can't find it anywhere. Where did you get it?

[MagicGirl]

Lorna,

 

I don't remember who it was or which thread it was but they did mention Pad Heal. I can't find it anywhere. Where did you get it?

 

 

I have not purchased it yet. I was hoping someone had some experience with it. I found it on several web sites that had to do with hunting or working dog supplys (one was cabelas).

 

I did a search of this board and came up with nothing.

[BayouBC]

I don't usually have too much trouble with this, but Kodah's torn up a pad on occasion. And this past weekend, Pith SHREDDED the main pad on both front feet. I still don't know how/why since he wasn't doing anything different from every other weekend, but he tore them up good.

 

Most of the time I just leave them alone. The dog will limp around a little the next day, but they're usually back to normal after a day or two. Then just limit the hard activity they're doing for the rest of the week, and the pads are usually healed up pretty well.

 

There is a cream that's good for pads though. I think it's called Udder Balm? Or something like that. It works pretty well.

[btrent]

Thanks Billy, I have some booties from a past dog that need them for her back feet when she could not walk. (protected her feet when the would drag the ground) I am afraid they would not stay on, some of the terrain is not very nice some times. Wooded and Logged clear cut areas, alot of slash laying around.

 

The vet has me coating her pads with some kind of deluted iodine ( guess I should ask what kind. Very strong even deluted makes my eyes water) It is suppose to treat the one blistered paw and help toughen them. I am putting it on all 4 pads right now.

 

Have you heard of a product called Pad Heal. It is suppose to heal and condition the pad. This is the ingredients: Raw linseed oil, Spirits of Turpentine, Pure Menhadin Oil, Balsam of Fir, Bees Wax, Oil of Vitriol.

 

I was hoping that some one with working dogs might have something they use and coud recommed. I will look into your idea about the tincture of benzoin.

 

Thanks so much,

 

Lorna

 

The booties from www.dogbooties.com stay on really well; they are, after all, made for mushers. (smile) The ones I got were really tough cordura, but light, and the velcro was bright neon in color, so you could actually find them if they did come off. The dogs did not mind them, and I have even used them on my puppy.

 

The Pad Heal sounds like many of the other 'tuff-foot' products. They normally always have those same types of ingredients (some of them scary). The nice thing about tincture of benzoin is it is safe to put in your mouth so I think it would be safer for the dogs to have on their feet (and they will no doubt lick it). It really does work but takes time to build up. You would have to use it daily for some time to see any effect, but that is true also of any of the other 'tuff-foot' type products.

 

good luck,

 

--Billy

[MagicGirl]

For anyone interested on this I had Magic in for her wellness check and Dr. Kerry took a look at her pad and said it looked great. We then discussed prevention. I had brought info on a couple of products, Pad heal and Tuf foot. She looked at the ingredience an got a sort of concerned look on her face.

 

She said that although they had different ingredience in them they had one thing in common, the main ingredient in both was an irratant, and what the product was probably doing was creating scare tissue to tuffen the pad. Well of course my 1st thought was " i'm not doing that to my dog".

 

Magic is out of the rest of round up any way and I think next year we will just be more careful. Spend more but shorter rides getting her feet in shape ahead of time.

 

Another interesting thing came out of our visit to the vet. Magic is just 2 yrs and I had the vet do blood work to establish a base line. Dr. Kerry called me with the results and said every thing looked great even though every thing was on the low side of normal. She said this was probably because of bone growth still going on. She said no concern she was still a puppy and we would do it again next year to compare.

 

Puppy!!!! I thought I finally had a dog, but no she burst my bubble. Another reason not to let her work to hard. She is still growing.