They say you should prepare your dog for hiking in the mountains.
You should get them used to carrying a pack with some weight in it (no more than 20% of
their body weight), work on their trail etiquette, and acclimate them to the
terrain they'll be walking on. In my dog's case, it was her feet that I was
most concerned with. Granted she's small and I could carry her if something happened, but she was going on her first major
backpacking trip with miles between where we'd be and the nearest vet. I was
determined to make sure LF not only had a great time hiking the trail with me, but
that she wouldn't get injuries either while we were out there in the mountains.
Meet LF (Little Effer) who received her name because of her unruly
behavior as a young pup; I swear she was a terrorist that came straight from Al-Qaeda when I first got her. Picture an alien and
a goat having an 18-pound love child with black fir, legs that are ridiculously
long compared to her body size and a pair of ears that still to this day seem to have
a mind of their own. I'm fairly certain I would've returned her for a refund had she not been as cute as she was.
We were backpacking from North
Lake Tahoe to South Lake Tahoe over 5 days. This would be LF's first backpacking trip ever and boy was she
excited about it... ok so I was the excited one but there was excitement in the air over this trip, LF probably didn't have a clue as to what was going on.
LF had worn a dog pack before on day hikes, so I wasn't too
worried about that, but her feet concerned me. Dog shoes I thought... great
idea! Have you ever seen a cat that got something stuck to its foot? The cat
does an erratic dance mixed with a ferocious leg shake in an attempt to release
whatever unwanted foreign object from their foot. Now picture that behavior on
the alien/goat dog times 4. Sure, her feet would've been protected from the
elements of the trail, but she would have been completely exhausted within the
first mile because of all the jumping around and shaking she was doing to try
and escape the doggy foot torture traps. Back to the drawing board I
went.
Thank god for the Internet, you
can literally find anything you're looking for and a ton of stuff you're not! I
happened to come across an article about different products that people used to
keep their dog's paws from getting thrashed on the trail. This one lady swore
by a product called Musher's Secret. It is a type of wax that you apply to your
dog's paws in-between the pads of their feet to keep tree sap and debris from
sticking to them. It turns out that most paw injuries come from something
sticking to their paw and the continued rubbing while they walk causes
abrasions on their feet. Next to the female funnel I bought so I could stand up
to pee, this was probably the next best purchase!
Needless to say, our trip was a
success. We made it more than 40 miles without any injury whatsoever. I highly
recommend the paw wax if you have a pup that turns into a Mexican jumping bean
when you put dog shoes on them.
Here is a link to the Musher's Secret
Musher's Secret paw protection
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