Dog Paws on the Desert Floor

More from our desert trip... Dogs' paw pads can be fragile, especially when faced with rocks in the desert after a winter of soft snow. You would think that cacti would be an issue too but our dogs learned a long time ago to stay far away from cacti. Unfortunately, sore paw pads became a brief issue on our trip.

On about the third day of our trip, the boys explored a steep-walled canyon during their run (it's off limits to bikes). It's one of those canyons that periodically has flash floods when it rains uphill of the canyon. Then, the formerly dry passage becomes a raging river. Due to those flash floods, the ground in the canyon varies between dirt, sand, gravel, and some occasional rocks. We thought that R would be fine without boots in the canyon because most of the running would be on non-rock surfaces.

Indeed, he seemed fine right after the run but, by that afternoon, he had very tender paw pads. They were so sore that we decided that he needed to wear boots almost all the time for a couple of days.

R generally doesn't mind boots too much, as long as he's doing something fun while he wears them. But, he doesn't like them when he's not distracted by something as fun as running - as you can see in the next photo.

He also seems to have difficulty knowing "where" his paws are when he's wearing boots. He adopts some odd paw positions.

After a couple of days, his sore paw phase passed as quickly as it had started, and he was fine to run again. And, on the very good news side of the ledger, his elbow held up well. We are now giving him pain medication more regularly to help him have fun through the summer until his elbow surgery in the fall.

Through it all, Shyla's paw pads were fine. She thanked her lucky stars for that because she abhors boots. In fact, she sometimes goes "on strike" and refuses to run if she's wearing boots. She's a barefoot kind of dog!

Because R had to be sedentary while his paws healed, I was glad that a big part of our camping trips involves simply relaxing in camp, watching the natural world around us and enjoying the quiet.

We always have our camping dinners at dusk while watching the stars appear. Then, we all go to sleep while my pre-programmed camera records the action in the sky.

I love the desert, and I am eagerly looking forward to going back again before it gets too hot there. I think that R may wear boots for every run on future trips!