Torn dog pad

Do they usually heal on their own, with a little help from Neosprorin and a bandage? Or should it be vetted? I haven't ever really dealt with pad injuries, so I'm not sure how to handle it. It's the top pad, near his dew claw, not the one on his actual foot. And it's clearly still attached, but torn enough for some movement and bleeding.

And of course it's 2 days before leave for a dock diving weekend. sigh....

I think it would depend on how bad the tear is. But everytime Tango skinned her pads (running after a ball or frisbee) I would just clean it and leave it. I tried neosporin (well, an ointment similar) but due to location it wouldn't have time to soak in/work. When Ripley tore his pad a couple of months ago though I cleaned it and put neosporin on and it healed within about 5 days or so. And I limited his activity too as it got irritated if he did too much. I didn't wrap either dog at all as I wanted the wound to have a chance to stay dry as moisture trapped can make it worse. Ripley's injury was on the biggest pad on his paw and Tango's were always on that pad, her toes or the stop pad (the one that sticks out sort of behind the wrist).

Kastle ripped his stop pads off at the last flyball tournament. I put neosporin and bandaged for one day and then was just careful to keep it clean and watch it after that. It's better not to keep it too moist so it can dry out/heal/toughen up.

When Steve ends up with big hanging bits, I just let him chew them off :-X

But yeah, other than that, clean, dry, and don't let him lick too much.

I clip hanging bits off, clean it, and then let it heal on its own. Which pad did he tear/skin?

It's not really 'hanging' per se, it's more like a paper cut, in terms of what it looks like. Just deeper than a skinning, its a definite tear. But a tear a little less than half way for a clean cut. If that makes sense? The pad he tore is his carpal pad, labeled E here:



I looked at it tonight to see if I could possibly let it air tonight and heal, keeping it clean from now on. But, the inside of the tear was red, and if it got hit, it would just get worse, so I opted to put a gauze pad on it (after cleaning and reapplying neosporin) again.

I don't know what a vet would do different. And honestly, I'm scared if we went he'd say we can't swim this weekend, even though it's a silly reason. If it's not improved by morning, we'll see. . .

Don't put anything on it. Let him lick it a bit and chew off any dangling bits, and let it heal a bit before you let him run around like a loon and come to a skidding stop. border collies have flexible pasterns which means that they actually use those carpal pads as a brake when they stop.

Eve has ridiculously weak carpal pads. like, she skids to a stop in some grass and the bottom part of her pad is dangling in shreds. We've gotten two things from this -

1.) the carpal pads do toughen up a little in time, and they do not inhibit the dog in walking normally or swimming.
2.) the dog learns not to skid so ridiculously that they shred their pads. Eve has ripped hers up BADLY a few times (to the point where we had to stop because she was bleeding quite a lot) and now doesn't throw herself around quite so carelessly.

Jo did that a while back (got stepped on by a horse as a pup, & tore the side of her foot in almost the same area it sounds like) I kept a vet wrap bandage & some ointment on it for a few days (with keeping it open at night) & it healed right up. She also 'peeled' her pads from too much running on thr asphalt when we first got to this ranch (its roads around the barn & such are paved), those just healed on their own.

Yea I would listen to RD on this - the stop pad is one of the easiest to get to heal ime. And a cut should clear up quickly with a bit of rest from skidding activities. Aeri burned hers badly when I was in IN - chunk missing and bleeding - and even with her doing lots of pacing (kennelled while I was out of town for a weekend) it healed up in about 4 days. It scabbed over and stayed scabbed after about 48 hours.

Yoshi use to tear hers up all the time.

I'm going to go with just try and keep it clean and leave it. I know Yoshi had some bad looking cuts before but she didn't even act like she noticed and they all closed up pretty quick. Usually under a week.