R ripping up carpal pads

[Debbie Meier]

This past weekend after working and trialling Ricky tore up his carpal pads many times, coming off the field the back of his legs from the pad down was blood red. I am figuring that he is overreaching as I found blood on the end of his rear feet. Other then trimming his nails back I'm at a loss of what else to do to reduce the occurance of tearing up the pad. It is also possible that he tore them up while stopping hard on frozed ground and that overreaching just caused the blood to migrate.

 

It does not seem to bother him, not seeing any lameness or lack of desire to work but am concerned about whether other issues could insue from this self inflicted injury.

 

Has anyone else had any expirences with a problem as such? Has it lead to any other issues with the dog that effected their ability to work such as chronic lameness, other injury or infection?

[Jim Kling]

We had it happen once with Rodeo, but he was indoors. He was lying around one day and suddenly lurched up suddenly, the way they do, and there was blood everywhere. We were panicking and he was looking at us like, "what?" He never limped or even seemed aware of it.

 

We still have no idea how it happened, but he'd torn a big gash in one of his pads. I don't think we did anything besides avoid running, etc., for a few weeks, and it healed up and hasn't recurred. That was probably 3 years ago.

 

I would just keep a close eye on it. I think there are products that are supposed to toughen up pads if it becomes a chronic problem.

 

 

Jim

[Lewis Moon]

Cerb tears up his CPs playing fetch. It seems to be a symptom of playing on bare ground. I use Musher's Secret and it really seems to help.