A leg up on paw protection

CINNAMON BUTTE — My black Labrador retriever, going on 9, has lost a step or two in physical prowess and freakish energy, but bloody paws won’t slow her down.

Dogs just have a way of trudging through pain — booties or no booties — without making a sound.

So it was to our horror — and the prelude to my trek with a 75-pound dog in my arms — when my wife and I discovered a few Saturdays ago our canine family member favoring her paws while standing in red splotches of snow.

Frozen snow, this Southerner (not from California) learned, is debilitating to a dog’s paws after a long haul. Even if that haul is spent primarily in toothy pursuit of cross-country skis.

Maynard, aka Minnie May, didn’t let us know the frozen snow and ice was chafing and scraping the skin that meets her padded paws. She gave not a whimper; not a frown in place of her goofy grin.

But her cautious gait and uncharacteristic pauses had let us know something was up. And after all, my wife and I aren’t oblivious to blood-splotched snow.

It was a warm February day on the snow-covered road to Cinnamon Butte. Fresh powder hadn’t fallen on the trail for days and warm afternoon temperatures and re-freezing at night created a thick, crunchy layer of snow.

When we fell going downhill on our cross-country skis it stung like pins and needles. Even after punching my gloved right hand through the snow, and suffering bloody scrapes to my bare forearm, I failed to recognize the chafing my dog endured.

Besides, conditions on the trail, located off Highway 138 East just north of Diamond Lake, had never harmed our dog before.

So there she went, prancing downhill and vehicle-bound, showing no signs of pain. It wasn’t until it was too late — and still a half-mile from the car — that we understood what sort of mayhem was afoot.

Our dog was happy to stay off of her feet and tend to them once we got her in the car and home. After a few days of rest, she was back to taking long walks again. No permanent damage was done.

In the future, of course, we’ll pay more attention to her paws. And also take preventive measures before outings in rough terrain.

With some online research for dog booties and pad treatments, I found products like Tuf-Foot, a liquid applicant that dries in a protective layer around a dog’s paw. Of all the different brands — some are also available for horses and people — I found solutions typically range in price between $8 and $12.

This past Iditarod, an annual sled-dog race in Alaska, featured teams of canines sporting booties.

Steve Waller, a hunting and sporting dog trainer who owns Cabin Creek Kennels north of Sutherlin, said sled dogs wear booties for more than just protection against ice: Snow can accumulate between their toes and re-freeze into sharp shards.

Dog booties, however, are also available for other reasons besides snow and ice. Hunting-supply catalogs such as Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops feature pages of booties and pad-toughening applications that dogs can wear while working in tough terrain.

On an online message board for Cabela’s, one hunter says he converted his buddies into believers after being ribbed for putting booties on his dog. Apparently the other dogs had to be taken out of a pheasant hunt because they had stepped on too many sand burs.

Just recently, the Associated Press revealed police dogs in Düsseldorf, Germany, wear little blue booties while patrolling city-center paths strewn with broken beer bottles.

Dog booties, available on many different Web sites, range in price from $20 for a set of two to $60 for a set of four.

Waller said he often trains retrievers to fetch in rough conditions just to toughen their feet.

“I actually throw bumpers down here on the gravel,” he said.

Alkali in the mountains is also known to wreak havoc on dogs’ paws by acting as a drying agent, Waller said. But he uses Vaseline as a solution, lathering it onto a dog’s paws the night before a trek so they retain some moisture the next day.

A dog might lick most of the Vaseline away, but it works just as well as any other name-brand solution, Waller said.

Alan Ross, a veterinarian at Companion Animal Clinic in Roseburg, said he doesn’t often treat dogs with damaged paws. But he figures booties are the best preventive measure, whether a dog’s trekking in the snowy Cascades or retrieving chukars in eastern Oregon.



• You can reach reporter Adam Pearson at 957-4213 or by e-mail at apearson@newsreview.info.