Hey all,

Starting two, maybe three years ago, Gerry's toenails started to crack, often quite high on the nail, sometimes causing the nail to snag or break off and otherwise require veterinary intervention to clip, bandage and prevent infection.  In probably the last six months, it has become a much more frequent issue.  There are no indications thus far that it's fungal or anything scary like toe tumors (yeah, that happens, apparently), and it's not bad enough to be SLO.  As frustrating as it has been, I do feel very lucky he doesn't have SLO (symmetrical lupoid onychodystrophy).

It has happened to pretty much every nail at this point (front feet and back foot), but only a handful have been bad enough to need veterinary attention.  He does do some digging, but doesn't seem to correlate to when his nails break.  On walks though, he does strain and pull ridiculously hard at times to try to reach dog poop or dead things that I don't want him to eat, so I'd believe that might contribute to it.  I also sometimes just hear his nails scuff the pavement for no apparent reason.  So, I suppose all that is a factor, as well as age (about 10 years) and perhaps the gait of a tripawd has a little to do with it as well.

In case tripawdness can make a dog more prone to toenail damage - I thought I'd better share what I'm trying for prevention in case it comes in handy!  Happy for advice from anyone who has gone through this with their dog (no matter how many paws). 

Initially, since it's not fungal, or tumor-caused, or SLO, all my internet research came up with was a "nutritional deficiency" - without being real specific what would fill this nutritional deficiency.  I was eventually persuaded by some website or other that gelatin could help - or at least of all the things that could help, it sounded the least risky of getting the dose wrong!  Unflavored gelatin only, of course.  "Gelatin" should be the only ingredient listed on the box.  Found some fun gelatin recipes for dogs online, although it may be that just sprinkling the right amount of gelatin straight from the package onto your dogs food is smarter, because I think in "gello" (as opposed to Jello) form we're actually a bit far from reaching the recommended dose per day.  But, I'm not too worried about that because of the second thing we're trying in addition is also a source of gelatin...

I emailed Gerry's chiropractor, cause she's also versed in other homeopathic stuff (and Gerry's regular vets didn't have any recommendations beyond keeping his nails short - bless them) and she sent me recipes for making bone broth.  Part of why bone broth should be helpful, according to her, is because of the gelatin in it - so some vindication there for my internet searching skills!

So, the dogs have both had bone broth added to their evening meal for the last 3-4 days or so (in addition to some tasty pumpkin & cinnamon and low sodium chicken broth gello in the morning).  They like the gello and loooooove the bone broth.  Will it work?  Time will tell, I guess.  I should probably think pawsitive, but the longer the list of things a remedy is supposed to be GREAT for, the more skeptical I get.  Here's the list of what gelatin/bone broth are GREAT for:

Joints (arthritis, hip displaysia...)

Allergies

Stomach (diarrhea, IBS...)

The brain (epilepsy, siezures...)

The liver

And I'm probably forgetting the rest. I should also mention fish oil is another thing that is supposed to be good for healthy nails (and fur and skin - the three go together it seems).  Gerry is already on fish oil for allergies, though I noticed dogs with SLO seem to get much higher doses of fish oil than he is on, so I might as his vet if increasing Gerry's dose of fish oil would be a good thing to try.

Am I late to the party?  Does everyone know about the wonders of bone broth already?  Certainly our tripawds could all use all the help with their joints they can get.  Not to mention Gerry's little brother, who I consider an honorary tripawd because of his luxating patella.