Dog Boots for Hiking

[Girlintheframe]

Can anyone suggest a brand please?
It's for especially rocky areas. I've looked at Ruffwear, Muttluks and a few others.
Some have very mixed reviews. Any recommendations greatly appreciated

[ViperBugloss]

Mine have Muttluks for rough terrain - the Mutt trackers

I also use Neopaws for when they need grip on slippery surfaces.

However one of my dogs does not get on with the Muttluks and he uses Ruffwear. It is a bit trial and error depending on the dog.

I think the Muttluks last slightly longer than the Ruffwear but that could be due to the dog rather than the boot.

The rest of the SAR team use Muttluks

[Girlintheframe]

Great thanks

[BarkingHat]

Can I just ask when you’d recommend using dog hiking boots. We often walk our 7 month old cockerpoo up and down glens, so rough surface lots of getting in streams and have taken her on short 40 minute Or so walks up hills. We are building up as don’t want to do too much too soon.

But will eventually be taking her on 2 to 3 hour hikes on stony hilly paths. Should she have dog boots? Or is it just for Cairngorms type walking?

[randomsabreuse]

We generally only used ours for long walks on stony tracks once we'd got the dog used to them. Particularly slate areas or where. There are sharp rocks. So something like Snowdon or lake district.

Long walks means out all day type walk for us.

Didn't find them great when in and out of streams if I remember rightly.

[HMSSophie]

Don't dogs have feet designed for walking? Not snarky, I'm genuinely shocked that these things exist

[randomsabreuse]

Dogs' pads are great for walking on mixed terrain. They struggle on sharp rocks like slate and with the engineered paths on main routes up major tourist hills like Snowdon, Scafell pike and other obvious honeypots, which are of necessity made of rough rock.

Also more difficult terrain where dog might need helping (eg with a rope/harness) and they might end up scrabbling on a pointy rock.

Mountain rescue dogs will be out all day. I think boots are also good in ice/snow and can stop snow balling between the pads.

Not usually required for "normal" walks, unless the dog has delicate pads

[randomsabreuse]

They're also good after a foot (eg broken bone or soft tissue) or pad injury.

[ViperBugloss]

My dogs work in dangerous terrain so need protection sometimes from chemicals, poisons, sticky, hot or just nasty surfaces.

On mountains they can use them on rough rocky areas but would not have them on or the whole trip. Again they are working so have no choice but to go on difficult surfaces.

Sometimes they need boots for grip so if on a very slippery surface.If searching a village hall or airport for example.

My pet dogs rarely wear boots even on mountain walks - but they are used to them just in case.

[HMSSophie]

Thanks - that's so interesting and just goes to show what I didn't know!

[Girlintheframe]

We are doing the west highland way next month and from what I've read it is very stony/rough in places so many people use dog boots to protect their paws.
We do lots of hill/Cairngorms etc and have never needed them. But because the WHW is day after day of walking it can be quite tough on their pads.