Hi everyone,

 I have been meaning to join this site for a long time! I have a 3 year old front right amputee named Dieter (he's the brindle guy in the middle on my avatar). He was turned into out local shelter when he was about 8 weeks old and had an unknown injury to his leg. We were fostering him and trying to do everything possible to save his leg, but it eventually had to be removed due to infection. Of course, who can resist a little tripod puppy, so we adopted him into our pack!

He is extremely active and loves to run and even has gone mountain biking with me. The problem is that due to his stance, the area between his paw pads gets rubbed raw due to pressure. Our vet and I had hoped that eventually this would callous, as this has been happening for awhile now. Unfortunately it hasn't and is now causing him so much pain that he doesn't want to do the things that he enjoys.

Before you all say it :-).... yes, I have tried booties,  moleskin between the pads, and we use neopred and cleansing wipes on it daily to decrease swelling and keep infection away. The booties don't do the trick because it doesn't alleviate the rubbing between his pads and the moleskin just rubs off. If this were a four legged dog, it'd be easy to get it to heal by keeping weight off it for 2-3 weeks, but what the heck does one do when that's not an option? Since he has no stump, a prosthetic wont work either, unless I rig something up myself!

My vet is out of ideas and so am I!  I am worried for him as he has a good 10 years that this leg and foot have to last.

Has anyone exexperienced this? I welcome any input!

Thanks in advance!

Robyn