Web Abrasions

[Guest chaoran22]

Hi - is anyone familiar with web abrasions? The ones my boy has are raw scrapes (small) on the underside of the web between his toes. The web is not torn in any way, just the underside of the web has a raw, bloody, scrape. They would happen every time he sprinted last summer so I kept him off his feet for the most part from then until now. He's gained some weight and gotten a little stir crazy even with long walks so I'd really like him to be able to really go off leash and have fun again, especially now that it's warming up again and he loves the dog beach so much, but he's starting to get the pesky scrapes again. They're not as bad as last summer as I'm careful to limit off leash sprinting to 15 min or so at a time but still.

 

Anyway - I looked this up in the Denise Como book regarding lure coursing injuries and she just said they're no big deal and will heal on their own (which they always do within a day or two, but my problem is that these are recurring! so the fact that they heal well doesn't really solve my problem) So any ideas on what to do with recurring abrasions? I've used New Skin to keep them from returning but it doesn't help. Could EMT gel work better? How are the two different? I don't know if it's just a structural weakness in his webs or if the way he's running is actually causing them to scrape on the ground? But he's been running on sand at the beach...I can't think of a gentler surface for him to run on.

[RobinM]

I'd ask the vet.

[Guest chaoran22]

Oh i forgot to mention that I asked my vet, she even posted it on her greyhound vet forum to see if other greyhound vets knew of anything, and no one had any idea. She looked at it and said as long as it was healing fine on its own, it's not a big deal and didn't really have answers for the fact that it was recurring. An obvious way of keeping this from happening is just to never let him run off leash, but that seems very sad to me and i think would make him very sad as well, so I'm trying to figure out a way to keep them from opening up all the time.

[RobinM]

Are his nails short enough? Could they be irritating his webbing?

 

I honestly don't know. Instead of 15 minutes running off leash which is a very long time, do 5 minutes of running. See how he is with short sessions of running and take it from there. This way if it starts to get irritated, you can address it earlier.

 

Only suggestion I can think of.

[Guest chaoran22]

Thanks for the suggestion! I don't think it's his nails - I keep them really short (since he's been getting these abrasions, I've made it a point of doing his nails with a dremel every couple of days). i've done some research and want to give EMT gel a try. I wish more vendors carried it. I have some questions about the gel though - not sure if I should delete this thread and start a new one or not but we'll see if i get responses here first:

 

Should i trim the fur around his webbing before applying the gel so the gel actually gets to the skin rather than all clumpy on the fur? (the fur definitely gets in the way of applying New Skin which is why I'm wondering)?

 

Is it really sticky? Does that make it difficult to deal with? What are some tips for applying in hard to apply places like between toes (although he's so used to me probing between his toes now he generally stays half asleep when I do it)?

 

Thanks!

[Guest lotsagreys4me]

Waht about him wearing a bootie when he runs? The kind made for canine companions seem to fit better and stay on better than the thera paws? Good luck and keep us updated