What a pain in the arse an injury to a dog's foot pad can be! It is a difficult location to heal quickly and can take what seems to be forever. Usually, a textbook healing process in this area, in my considered experience, is rare. If your dog has a foot injury, then my advice and helpful tips may aid the tedious and very worrisome process of healing a split or cut pad, an infection or abscess or even hot spots between the toes.

To begin, my experience with a footpad injury occurred this past winter where one of my male Irish Wolfhounds experienced an off-center split on his digital pad causing lameness. In my region, we have significant snowfall accompanied by sub-zero temperatures and split pads are not that uncommon, so, I used a conservative approach. I attempted to heal the pad, with Mushers Secret, an ointment made from food grade waxes which is a very popular preventative used by dog sledders in extreme climates. Usually, this balm can heal minor fissures, and most people have met with tremendous success using it. Suggestion, before you do use it know that it is best applied just before you walk out the door with the dog, otherwise, if applied too thick or if the wax remains on the pads when the dog returns inside you will have a mess to clean up off your floors. I would not use this product if my wolfhounds did not have separate living room accommodations within our home as the wax positively left footprints all over their commercial tile flooring. We do not have carpeting in our home, but I would imagine the wax would remain in carpet fibers and could ruin expensive rugs.  

In my case, the Musher did not work, and the fissure continued albeit,  abnormally healing creating a painful interdigital callus. At this point, I threw my hands up in the air and decided to have the callus removed as the best way to describe the feeling was like my wolfhound was walking around with a stone in a shoe. Sutures is not an ideal strategy for an 180-pound giant breed in the middle of winter, but, it had to be done as the young male wolfhound was very uncomfortable and obviously still lame. The veterinarian removed the callus and sutured the split pad with non-dissolvable sutures. Now, the next problem was how to keep it dry for 14 days.

I solved this problem by purchasing an unique protective foot and leg dog boot from Medipaw.

Medipaw protective dog boot is a convenient way to keep bandages, casts, amputations & sutures dry and clean. The waterproof/breathable protective dog boot is a useful tool in following through on veterinary treatments. Drier bandages mean less chance of infection, fewer stinky bandages and reduced need for re-wraps. The boots are oversized to accommodate a bandage and splint.

Our wolfhound wore this every time he went outside and was removed after he came back in and it worked very well. The wrapping was changed daily, and before re-wrapping, I allowed the area to air dry for at least a half hour. We did this for one week with suture removal 14 days later. However, the area was not healing well enough as the area remained red and moist but was also spreading to other areas of skin between his digitals and metacarpal pad. This is because the dog's sweat glands located on their pads kept a constant humidity level that was exacerbated by the wrappings. I used Nitrofurazone Powder (aka Puffer) which is an antibiotic to dry the area at the same time as expediting the healing process. This powder is a must-have, and I try to keep it on hand at all times as it is excellent for ears and minor wounds.

Even after applying the nitrofurazone powder and keeping the foot dry, it still seemed too moist to me, and at this point, I said enough and put my trust in Mother Nature. Off came the wraps and off came the Mediboot and out went that foot into the knee-deep fresh snow. Don't you know, after two days the skin irritation, and redness began to heal up quickly. So, through trial and error, experience has shown me that if there is a problematic wet area on the underside of a dog's foot due to a wound that has not healed properly, then my suggestion, depending on the season, would be to allow cold deep snow to work on the wound. While living near the ocean and beaches, I would allow the salt water to help heal by regularly allowing the dog to walk in the surf.