Tips to help keep paw clean after nail removal - help please!

[muckypaws]

Our Golden Retriever is 14 months old and managed to damage a claw so went to the vets and they had to remove the nail, so he has the nail bed (I think that's what it's called) now exposed until the nail grows back. He came home with a tie on 'boot' on his foot, all fine. We were told to bathe the foot each day in saltwater and use the boot to keep it clean, only do short walks. The problem came yesterday when we tried to bathe the paw for the first time and he went wild, completely panicked and bit both me and dh. We managed it in the end but it was horrible. Are there any tips for doing this? We tried treats, being gentle, but nothing worked and I feel terrible. Any help would be wonderful.

Is he muzzle trained?

No he isn't.

Ah okay. Probably something to work on for the future.

Have you tried spreading something like doggy pate or peanut butter onto the side of the bath? Then while he's busy eating you can quickly wash the paw?

However I have to say if he was so stressed he was biting I would ring the vets tomorrow and see what they suggest going forward.

We tried peanut butter and although he started off being distracted by it, as soon as we touched his paw he twisted away. The muzzle training is something I will look into definitely as this will likely come up again.

I had a dog whose nails did not sit properly in the nail beds and they ripped off a lot-thus exposing the quick being incredibly painful-I'm sure that's why your dog bit.

The vet we used often removed nail and did very elaborate bandaging and used little casts etc to protect it.

We then moved and got a new vet and he was horrified. Said it just needed to be exposed to the air to heal so completely different treatment and very successful. We never had to wash it every day though- just keep an eye on it.

The quick being exposed is excruciating-obvioulsy I don't know what you dogs paw looks like but being handled is upsetting and I would def query wether this is necessary.

We fill a Tupperware pot with salty water, stand dog up and put paw in water, while lifting up the other leg, so he has to put weight on it (which spreads the paw out). That means we don't touch his sore paw at all but it still gets rinsed with salt water.

@mumsiedarlingrevolta that's interesting because the nail doesn't look too bad really, just pink. At the moment the boot is off because it just fell off so I'm leaving it while he's in the house for the moment.

To be honest I would be tempted to let him take care of the area and keep it clean himself and monitor situation if he's reacting so fiercely to being handled.

My dog would similarly struggle although is now muzzle trained. However I don't know that now is the time to try muzzle training on him as he will be very stressed already.

When my dog cut his paw on glass before he was muzzle trained I knew it would be very difficult to work with him but he was doing a great job of cleaning the wound himself. I would take photos of it from a safe distance and zoom into them so I could examine how it was healing and obviously if there had been any sign of infection I would have got him straight down to the vet.

@itwa thank you, will try that trick. He's very apologetic about the biting, looks really worried this morning, but the pain distressed him so much and I think he had a bad time at the vets because he came out very distressed. He's usually a very confident and chilled dog, fairly typical GR, so this is out of character.

We do salt water baths by getting the dog to lie down on the rug. Lots of treats. Then one of us will calmly stroke the dog and use a soothing tone and we place a flannel that has been soaked in saltwater on to the area, rather than dunking a foot in a bowl of saltwater (you might the dog lay on a towel). A flannel can you control a bit more too, you can gently press to the area and the dog isn’t wondering why it’s whole foot is in a bowl and it hurts. It’s going to hurt if the nail bed is exposed, so lots of reward. Whoever is at the head, strokes their shoulder because you’re out of reach of the mouth but you can apply some gentle pressure to keep them lying on the floor, if needed. Use the hand that isn’t stroking to trickle feed rewards, have a bowl with their food in or loads of treats and just keep feeding them as they lie nicely and let you look at the paw. Tone is soothing but the words are rewarding, so lots of good girl/boy but in a calm, measured way.

We have also taught our dog to be calm during inspection of body parts, it has a proper name but I can’t remember it unfortunately. So when they aren’t in pain, we get them to lie down and look at their paw. Gently play with it a bit. You start by saying “paw” as you look at the dog’s paw, then “good paw, good dog” as they let you look at their paw. Treat and keep looking, keep saying “good paw”. When you’ve done, big fuss. We do this with eyes, ears, teeth, nose, paw (which is also leg) and tail. Anything on the head is done with them sitting and tail is done with them standing. So we would do the above routine but we would also use “paw” to let the dog know their paw is being looked at. In the soothing tone we will say “good paw”. This isn’t for the time being but you can train this for future needs.

@cupsofcoffee can you recommend what sort of muzzle is best?

Thank you so much for all the help everyone. I will do some muzzle training once this whole drama is over, not going to introduce a muzzle now don't worry. I think some more training on letting paws be touched is a very good idea @InTheNightWeWillWish, as it's something we did a bit of to start with, and he's fine with eyes and ears, but paws have always been more of a problem.

[quote muckypaws]@cupsofcoffee can you recommend what sort of muzzle is best? [/quote]
I would always recommend a Baskerville muzzle as they still allow your dog to eat, drink and pant properly, plus they're more comfortable imo!

You can get one fitted properly in Pets at Home or similar 😊

@cupsofcoffee thank you!

Our patterdale x has SLO so we had loads of nail issues before he was diagnosed . I would say the best way forward is don’t get it dirty so lead walks on pavement and if necessary a lead in the garden to stay off mud that way you can literally just dip the foot in the bowl of salt water if necessary . We’ve tried a few walking boots and found the Vetdry ones were one of the better ones .

Thanks @Floralnomad that's really useful to know. I'm really hoping this isn't the start of a series of vet visits for this. Hope your poor dog is okay now.

He was diagnosed at about 18 months and he is 11 next month , all we get now is occasional splitting because he’s on the correct vitamins and supplements . He is a bit funny about people touching his paws but not remotely aggressive just removes the paw but he had to have a portion of toe amputated for diagnosis so I think it’s reasonable to be a bit concerned that someone might catch him unawares and lop off another one 😄