I took Leela to the dog park on Saturday. Of course, she ran around like a lunatic, harassing all the other dogs for about an hour. As we left, we were about halfway to the car and I noticed that she was limping. I stopped and grabbed ahold of her paw and turned it over. Ick. There was blood all over her foot and there was some flesh hanging from her paw pad. I had a minor freak-out. I called the vet immediately and they said they could see me as soon as I got there.
From what I could tell (it was hard to see with the blood and dirt) it seemed that she had ripped a chunk of her paw pad off. I put her in the car and she laid down and tried to lick at it. I put a stop to that and then continued on to the vet. Leela simply went to sleep because she was exhausted from playing.
We arrived at the vet and we got to take a closer look. It seems that she tore the cover off of the paw pad. The rough covering that sits on top of the pad simply lifted off. It’s much thinner than I imagined that it was. For example, if you’ve ever peeled a grape, the covering is about the thickness of the grape skin.
The vet thinks she might be allergic to something and it caused her paws to become enflamed. Then, the running around on the hard ground for so long caused the covering on her paw to peel back. Similar to how a blister comes off if you run on it for too long. The short term solution is that we will be keeping an eye on her paws to see if they continue to get inflamed.
The vet has her on a short cycle of prednisone to knock the swelling down. She’s also on some Clavomox to ensure that she doesn’t get an infection. Long term, he wants her to take Derm Caps to make the skin on her paws healthier and stronger. Does anyone have experience with Derm Caps? I need to order some from the internet. I see it’s possible to get them in 500 count containers, but I’m not sure how long they last or if they expire.