Ouch

Lola has split her dew claw. Poor baby. It's okay though   

Poor thing! Demps has done that - horrible!

I hope she feels better soon

Dewclaws are such a nuisance - I wish breeders would snip them off at birth and save dogs a lot of pain and owners from a lot of trouble and expense.

I hope Lola feels better very, very soon   

We asked the vet if it was worth giving them the dew-snip at birth. Apparently, the front dewclaws are too important in a dog's daily life for them to be cut off, unless they break them repeatedly, and also have more bone in them than the hind ones (if they even have hind ones). I hadn't even thought about how often Dempsey uses his dewclaws for things like holding his toys down as he chews them, scratching his ears, planting his claw against the sofa to stop himself from sliding, etc.. There's also something about traction when they're running, but I don't know if the dewclaw actually touches the ground when dogs run.  Maybe it depends on the breed?

When Demps kept breaking his, I was always tutting because I thought that the dewclaws should have just been cut off straight away, to save later pain. Thank you, vet, for setting me straight!   

That's interesting, Eleanor, thank you.

I'll admit that dewclaws are a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, having heard over my many years of so many painful incidents concerning them, including the removal of them when they are set to bone which is obviously much worse than clipping off a bit of cartilage when the puppies are little more than foetuses. One of Kuchar's friends, a Boxer, has recently had to go through this operation and has only just recovered.

I'll admit too that my previous two dogs, Dobermanns, had their dewclaws removed at birth and so they were never a problem to them or me.

Kuchar of course has his dewclaws, and thank heavens so far, touch wood, they have not been a problem. But I'll have to honestly admit that I have never seen them being an asset to him. I still can't help thinking that they are out-dated and useless vestigial throwbacks (like for instance the appendix and tail-bone in humans).

I honestly don't know. They do seem to cause more trouble than they're worth! I don't really know anything about them, other than the little I've read online and what the vet said.

I agree that they are more trouble than they are worth. I know that we as humans have been guilty in the past of cutting more bits off of dogs than were warranted for their own good, but I still think these useless and yes ugly, but more importantly troublesome vestiges of evolution should be an exception.

Maybe, some day down the line, they'll lose the dewclaws entirely. I can understand keeping them on the front legs, if the procedure and recovery would be too painful for a puppy to bear. I'm guessing it might hurt quite a bit and be complicated, as I think there's bone attaching the toe to the leg. I'm wondering if it would fall under the same legislation as the tail docking ban? Although this would be for health reasons, rather than aesthetics...

The way the vet explained it was that the back dew claws are held on by gristle & are easily & painlessly snipped off within a couple of days of birth, but the front ones are attached by bone so it's an amputation. That takes anaesthetic & a longer recovery time with the threat of infection in a tiny puppy.

she seems okay today. Made me shudder to look at it

Poor Lola! Give her a big from me!

Will do

Poor girl, that sounds so sore

How's she doing?

so easy done , a friends dog did hers the other week just leaving her crate at the show

I know this is a hobby horse of mine, so please forgive me -

I can only say that if I as a human had a vestigial and useless digit dangling halfway up my forearm and constantly and painfully catching it in things that my forearms have necessarily to delve amongst, then I would wish that that this bothersome appendage was snipped off at birth when it was just a bit of gristle.

There, I've said it !

She is a lot better, it doesn't bother her

Glad she's feeling better!

They're a nuisance, aren't they?