Cracked Paw Pad, Limping, Spay Infection...Help! - Page 1

Hello everyone, I am new here. Seems like a great place for information.

I recently adopted a female GSD from the Westside German Shepherd Rescue of Los Angeles almost a month ago. Her name is Mystic and she is 1 year old, spayed, microchipped, & has all of her current shots. She learns fast, very sweet, active, protective, and just the dog I was looking for. Its a perfect match.

The first 2 weeks was wonderful with no major problems. She had some separation anxiety, but she seems to be almost over that now that she is more comfortable in her new home.

However, a week ago, I noticed that her spay scar was becoming infected. She was fixed March 10th. So it has been a few months. I took her to the vet for a physical exam as well as getting some antibiotics for her wound. She was in perfect health except for her infection. He put her on antibiotics for 2 weeks plus I had to get her the Elizabethan collar so she would not lick. The wound is healing nicely so far. She has been on the meds for 5 days now. I make sure she wears the collar when I am not around or at night when I am asleep. Otherwise, I take the collar off if I am here. I can monitor if she tries to lick her wound. She is really good at not licking it. She cannot play properly with the collar on either so I take it off to give her a break from it. 2 whole weeks of wearing that 24/7 just seems a bit much. 

But now she is limping. My fiance, Michael, took her out for a walk on Monday night (its now Thursday) and he is not sure what happened, but she all of a sudden started limping. It was not severe limping or anything though. I took a look at her foot and she has a cracked paw pad (the large part). It is NOT a cut though. There is NO bleeding, swelling, infection, or oozing. It is just a cracked pad.

I have spent about $1,000 in the last 3 weeks between the adoption fees, all the supplies, a crate, and on top of it, a $165.00 vet visit for the antibiotics and I am sorry to say this but I simply CANNOT afford to take her into the vet just for him to look at her paw. I have to get some more money in the bank. LOL I have a follow up appointment on May 21st for him to look at her scar, however. But if he looks at her paw too, I will be charged for another exam. 

So I started looking up online various home remedies for a cracked paw pad. Lots of people recommend Bag Balm. I know there are fancier paw pad products out there, but like I said, I am now on a budget. I did not expect all these extra bills for her to be thrown at me right off the bat.

Most people do not recommend the dog boots because they do not breathe. So I read to put Bag Balm on the cracked area and then apply a baby sock over that with medical tape at the top so she does not take it off. I started doing that process yesterday morning. The limping is becoming more pronounced. I know she does not have a hurt leg or ankle because the ONLY time she pulls away is when I touch the actual paw pad. She does not even flinch when I do anything to her foot, ankle, or leg.

But the problem is that she cannot exercise properly and she keeps us up at night because she has all this pent up energy. She will play around the backyard for a bit but then will lay down because her pad bothers her.

Her personality has changed with all this too.  I feel so bad for her. I feel helpless. She just seems so sad and down. I can imagine that I would too if I were bored and did not get to run and play like normal. She is still eating, drinking, etc. She just seems so sad now.

So my questions are:
Any extra advice for dealing with a cracked paw pad?
How can I get her energy out if her paw pad is bothering her? Should I still take her for short walks at a slow pace?
Why has her personality changed? Is is because she can't play properly?

Awesome that you rescued that little girl.  As far as the cracked pad I recently dealt with a cut on the pad.  I did have the vet come over and take a look at it and I can say that I think that it was a waist of money.  I was told on here that my dog would be just fine and guess what....He was.  lol....The vet tried wrapping it up but he just tore it off.  I did soke his foot in peroxide and kept it as dry as I could and he would lick it and clean it himself.  It was back to normal within 1 week.  Now you cant even tell it was there and it was about 3 weeks ago.  Try to ensure that she doesn't have anything stuck in there and just let her take it easy.  As far as her demeanor and how she is acting..... I think that it's a good chance that she is depressed that she can't do what she normally does.  My dog didn't get depressed but he was pissed.  But he was in no pain what so ever.  He didn't limp at all but was leaking blood everywhere.  Give her lots of cuddle time and she should be back up and going pretty quick. 

jwalker

I'd say you're doing everything you can for the paw, especially considering she's already on antibiotics.  You'll just have to wait it out and bear with her extra energy until she can get more exercise.  I'm moreconcerned about her spay incision being infected after so long...these are usually closed up and more or less healed within a couple of weeks!

When our female GSD was about 6 months old- my husband called her, she came at a dead run, skidded out on some ice and crashed into her outdoor pen. She was in so much pain that we took her to the vet thinking that she broke her leg; it turned out to be a very bad sprain so we had to keep her from running for 6 weeks (ie. no off-leash time). We still took her for short, slow walks around the block (with people helpfully pointing out that our dog had a really bad limp in case we hadn't noticed.) But -whoa- was she ever pissed about her limited exercise!

We found that doing frequent, short training activities that didn't require much movement helped to burn off the excess energy. We taught her to roll a ball back and forth to us with her nose from a down position (stupid but she loves doing it), lots of stays from a down or sit (stay while I hide around the corner, stay while I roll around on the ground, stay with food a few feet from her, etc.), etc.

reason she wont step on her paw is because it's closing up and putting more pressure/weight on it feels like it will tear open, so don't worry about her paw it will be like new by next week..you will see....However just like Keith I am more concerned about her surgery site...keep an eye on that..and don't let it get red and if it starts swelling up take her back to the vet.
her attitude may be reflection of you, you are concerned and worried she is keeping her head down, staying away from you, once you are calm and back to normal she will be back to normal too...and ofcourse exercise will help..playing will help...start teaching her to search..get 5 boxes and place cheese under 1 box or her favorite ball and have her smell around till she picks the right box...this will keep her busy and mostly in 1 spot...and she gets to work, use her nose...

Great advice LadyFrost. I think it has been a long time since the spay, (March) that should be all healed.
Paw pads tend to heal slowly. If the injury is truly on the pad, you can go intense and soak and bandage and keep confined..... or you can just let nature take its course and let her limp around for awhile, with pretty much no treatment, (AS Long as there really isn't true infection) and it will get better after a while. pads do not heal really well, so she may limp for quite a while. 

Our dog also had a huge crack on his big pad. The vet told us to apply New Skin liquid bandage and limit the dog's activity until it healed. It worked like a charm. We were very relieved especially since the crack was on the only rear foot of our 3 legged gsd Forrest Gimp.