Split claws???

[mark]

I have a 16 month old chesapeake bay.
We've taken the greatest of care of him since day 1, regular vet checks, shots, quality food etc.
About 3 months ago he was simply chasing the ball in our yard (like every day) I noticed blood in his footsteps.
Upon inspection, one of his rear claws was split wide open, lengthwise, top part flapping upwards, and bottom downwards.
Split right back to the flesh of his toe!
The vet said its not that common, but not rare either, the only solution was to put him under and amputate the claw and cauterize it.
So we did, gave him all the pills, he wore the cone, followed all the vets orders to a tee, but it took a long time to heal, requiring more antibiotics, cone wearing foot wrapping etc...
Its been nearly 2 months of monitoring and dealing with it, but it seems fine now......just yesterday I notice one of his front claws is splitting the same way????? WTF

This claw is not split as bad, it had not opened up to get crap inside yet so I doused it with crazy glue to keep it shut and harden it up, but thats only a short term fix IMO????

Im calling upon the panel of wisdom here!!!!
Anyone have experience with this??? Any advise, suggestions, ideas????
:confused:

[Sasquatch]

Must have been pretty bad to amputate the claw. I've had dogs with split claws and they healed up. Gluing it should help if its only split at the top - they do grow after all.

I was told the best prevention is to keep the claws trimmed as short as you can without hitting the quick.
I've seen people you a dremel to grind the claws down and round them out, that seems to work well. Rrounded ends on the claws should split less.

Hope it works out without another amputation.

[mark]

Must have been pretty bad to amputate the claw. I've had dogs with split claws and they healed up. Gluing it should help if its only split at the top - they do grow after all.

I was told the best prevention is to keep the claws trimmed as short as you can without hitting the quick.
I've seen people you a dremel to grind the claws down and round them out, that seems to work well. Rrounded ends on the claws should split less.

Hope it works out without another amputation.

After his first problem, Ive been using my dremel to file his claws, filed off all the tips and sharp edges just to prevent this again!
The first one was very nasty, this one is savable I hope!

[The Dawg]

Had it happen a few times to the service dogs...found the best preventative maintenance was to keep them trimmed short, along with regular walks on pavement to help keep them filed down.

[dakotawinters]

What kind of exercise do you do with the dog? Just wondering sometimes it can be something missing in their diet or... imagine running a marathon in bare feet.. sometimes the callouses are not built up. I have a few special creams i put on to protect pads before going out and training.
Or there are boots as well.... def. keep the nails trimmed but this will help as well.

[mark]

What kind of exercise do you do with the dog? Just wondering sometimes it can be something missing in their diet or... imagine running a marathon in bare feet.. sometimes the callouses are not built up. I have a few special creams i put on to protect pads before going out and training.
Or there are boots as well.... def. keep the nails trimmed but this will help as well.

No issues with his pads!!! He runs around the acreage, swims alot, chases balls and sticks etc...
Top quality food, as well as a bit of everything we eat!

[dakotawinters]

Thought maybe the two could be correlated.

[Chuck]

We run ours on the pavement. This seems to work quite well in the summer and the natural wearing keeps them down enough we don't have to bother with trimming. She doesn't like to be trimmed and I was considering that battery operated grinder for pets as offered on TV.
The Dremel sound would drive her nuts, so the battery machine would probably have the same effect. Back to the clippers no doubt.

[buck nash]

It's happened to my ridgeback a few times but never that bad. We keep her nails really short (right to the quick) and run her on pavement or concrete after a trim to round the edges. We trim her nails every other week so the quick doesn't get a chance to grow at all.

We also give her cow hooves to chew on. We were told it helps by our vet. She's older and much less rowdy than she used to be so its hard to say wether the hooves work or if she's just more careful when she runs. I suspect it's more the latter.

Your dog will likely learn to tread more carefully as he ages.:)

P.S. don't let him bring those hooves in the house, they smell awful.

[BlacktailStalker]

I would wager a small bet that it is a genetic trait.
Fortunately a minor issue on the scale of potential problems !

[Slime green cat]

My GSP splits them and tears them right off all the time . First time he ripped one right off it looked so bad we took him to te vet and the cauterized it and it healed up good .... since then he has done it about a dozen times . Now I just let it heal on its own . It bleeds for a while when he first does it, but it stops after a while and they seem to heal up fine . Damn dog just runs so hard and fast through the nastiest thick bush when you let him off leash that wrecking his nails has just become the norm .... I think he is used to it too because it doesn't seem to slow him down any . I think its just one of those things some dogs are bad for and others aren't .