Split Paw Pad Disease

Our vet phoned yesterday with some more potential diseases.  One of them was "Split Paw Pad Disease". There is a dismal amount of information on this on the internet, but there is a book that has some information about it.  From the description and the pictures it looks like it could definitely be the issue!  Figure 4.32 is pretty much what her two pads look like.

It sounds like it is pretty rare and I haven't been able to find any information on treatment yet.  Anyone heard of this before?

The Paw Saga

Coulee's right front pads have done it again.  This time there is quite a deep crack (or fissure as the vet calls it) and she is limping quite a bit.  In just two days her pad has gone from healthy looking with a crack, to grey and dead.

Taken yesterday before the deadness set in.

We took her into the vet again and there are two options.  1) It is Lupus but the blood test was wrong.  2) She has coincidentally damaged the same paw and pads again.

I'm leaning towards it being coincidence.  It was pointed out if she has a certain gait, it is possible that she keep re-injuring herself in the same place.  I'm not sure why it has never happened before now but maybe it is because she is getting older and falling apart like the rest of us.  :)

So we are going to hold off on a biopsy but we are going to put her on some fish oils - if it is Lupus it may help, and if it isn't, it won't hurt her.  It is also good for her kidneys which we still aren't sure if we should be concerned about.

Anyway, sorry for the boring post.  It is just useful to have this written down for when I need to reference it later.

Stay

Lacey was practicing her "Stay" at the dog park.  She did pretty good considering we never ever practice anywhere but home.

Just Ducky

These guys just came up behind us out of the blue.  No time to change any camera settings, but it worked out pretty good!  I love the guy in the middle with his beak open.

More Panning

You knew I'd have to try again right?  The first three were taken at a slightly faster shutter speed than yesterday - 250  instead of 160.

Then I had to try it in the water.  I slowed the shutter down to 200 for these.

Apparently when running in water you need to make a crazy face.  :)

Panning

I've been meaning to attempt panning for a long time and for some reason, I've never gotten around to it.  Here is my first attempt - courtesy of my obsessive border collie cross again.  :)  Frankly they give me a bit of a headache to look at.

Boonie the Snowman

The weather outside is frightful.

We got a whole bunch of wet, heavy snow and it is still coming down.  Oh yeah, and the wind is blowing too.

We attempted to take the dogs out for a walk.

It didn't last long.

Boone became a snowman in minutes.

We alternated between killing ourselves laughing as he tried to jump out of his newly formed snow boots and helping break off the snowballs for him.

We quickly realized that it was a never ending battle so we headed home.  Boone at least got a good workout carrying all that extra weight around.