Shaking And Toe Scraping

[Guest RMarie]

Does anyone else's grey shake so vigorously that he/she scrapes his/her toes on the ground? Like any dog, James shakes. His style is to put most of his weight on his right side and let his left front leg go airborne, so to speak. It's actually hilarious, I should take a video, because his tongue goes flying and it just generally looks like a bad dance move. Anyway, he shakes more when he's wearing his coat and when it's raining. If he does this outside, he ends up scraping his toes on the concrete. I know I can't make him stop shaking, but I do try to keep hold of him when I know he is more likely to shake (like by the front door when we get back from a walk). But, the week Sandy blew through, his toes were messed up all week from shaking off the evil rain. That prompted me to buy boots.

 

I'm just curious if James is the only self-mutilating hound out there.

[greyhead]

Our two boys shake like that too, but they mostly do it inside the house, on the carpet! So no mutilation here.

[JJNg]

This doesn't sound normal. How old is James? Has he had any past injuries, or does he favor any of his legs? What you describe sounds like he's favoring his left side and is off balance when he shakes. What part of his toes does he scrape?

[Brandiandwe]

Brandi does this but both front legs go, then both back legs. She does it indoors and on grass though, so no damage.

[Guest RMarie]

This doesn't sound normal. How old is James? Has he had any past injuries, or does he favor any of his legs? What you describe sounds like he's favoring his left side and is off balance when he shakes. What part of his toes does he scrape?

 

James is 3. He retired this summer. We adopted him at the end of August. I do not know if he had any past injuries; we were not told of any. He is definitely off balance when we shakes. I'm not sure why he shifts his weight, but it's definitely by choice. He does not favor any leg. He ends up scraping the insides of his toes, from where the pad meets the skin and up between his toes at the tips, not back to the webbing. So, if you're looking at him straight on, you would see a bloody patch right behind his nail. He can scrape toes on both feet, not just his airborne left leg. I would think the cause is the nail on the neighboring toe, but he doesn't come up with scrapes when he shakes inside the house or in the grass, so it's definitely from making contact with the concrete. I'm not overly concerned...I was just curious if anyone else's dog did this.