Pads

Conker's pads are wearing off. We walked to the hardware store today (that is only about 1.5 miles away) and Conker was fine. But on the way home I noticed him limping very slightly in the front. One foot, then the other... Conker doesn't limp on his front feet, he limps on the right back foot.
So I stop to check his feet out. All the pads, mostly the toes, have small bits worn off!

The right hind foot has the least amount of wear. He does not put a whole lot of weight on that leg and takes maybe a 3/4 stride.

This is a bit puzzling since his pads were fine last night. The sidewalk and asphalt we walked on was normal, not overly harsh or nothin. And we didn't run, he wasn't pulling, and it wasn't hot.
I am thinking that even though we walk a lot at night, his pads are soft. They did get a bit damaged from the cold in Alaska (which I feel terrible about, and also happened to my hands and feet) and maybe they just finally couldn't hack it, or something.

So I am going to lay off on the pavement walks, stick to grass and whatnot, maybe get him some socks to wear if we do go out on the pavement. I'll probably increase his oysters slightly (for zinc) and apply some vitamin E to help the pads heal.


I saw this sort of thing often at the sleddog kennel. The pads began to wear like this before they got bad and wore or tore down to the flesh underneath. The dogs had vitamin E oil put on and were either rested or wore booties when they were run.