We think a lot these days about slippery floors - we've lots of hard flooring (and now lots of rugs and doormats) and a dog recovering from surgery. I was told that trimming the fur between pads on the bottom of feet helps a dog grip on floors. It makes sense, but I was just wondering whether anyone has heard of this, or tried it?
Re: Trimming fur on feet Yeah, I did on my old dog when he got wobbly in the legs. It helped slightly however the effect was minimal compared to putting down mats and getting him dog boots.
Re: Trimming fur on feet hmmm... yes. I looked at the dog boots. I reckon Charlie would hate/chew them. I don't have a problem right now. But only because the floors are all covered up. I'm not keen on the rug/doormat shop look though, so wondering when or if I could ever reduce them a bit.
Re: Trimming fur on feet Buy fitted carpets When Drift fractured his elbow the consultant vet wondered if he had slipped on laminate flooring and hit a door frame, she said this often happens. Fortunately we have fitted carpets except in kitchen and bathrooms, but they do slide about in the kitchen, it is small so they cannot get up speed and injure themselves.
Re: Trimming fur on feet Are all your floors a slippery surface Julie? I know at the moment you have to be extra extra careful and while they are young, boisterous and bouncy they can easily slip but he will calm down and stop racing about at 100mph. We used to have laminate floor in the kitchen in the old house and Murphy slipped and wouldn't walk across it after that so I got a really big rug from ikea which covered most of it just leaving a border of laminate. Having learnt not to have slippy floors we had the kitchen in the barn tiled with a textured stone like tile. It's murder to mop but isn't slippy at all. I do have a big rug in the middle but that's mainly to put the dogs' bowls on, it's an horrendous noise when the push them around the tiles. Scott and scout have never slipped on these tiles and theyve raced about at amazing speed I'm ashamed to say. Even when wet they aren't slippy.
Re: Trimming fur on feet Jen - they are not super slippery, no. And you are right, if he weren't tearing round like the hooligan he is (when uninjured, right now he is in a crate or on a lead), they wouldn't be bad at all. So hoping in time I can relax things a bit. I live in an old house. The large hallway is a very beautiful and historically interesting victorian polished concrete, and the kitchen, breakfast room and Charlie's room is done in Italian tile. It's out of the question to pull these up and replace these. And it's really out of the question to glue anything onto, or screw into, the concrete to fit carpet fastenings. I would rather carry on as I am than put fitted carpet in the kitchen, I couldn't live with that. I've already put carpet down in two rooms, and a large rug covering most of the lovely old wooden floor boards in another room. Gaps in doorways and odd shaped bits are patched by rubber backed doormats (I would like to lose these but they are strategically placed for Charlie cornering at top speed - but obviously plan A is that he doesn't get to run at all right now). In the other spaces, I'm living with the large rug/doormat look - but it's not a good look. I don't mind the big rugs, or even the runners. It's the filling all the gaps with the doormats that I'm finding difficult to live with. The only place it looks good is Charlie's room! He has a big child's playmat with a farm animal theme. It looks fab, and very cheerful, I think!
Re: Trimming fur on feet [quote author=JulieT link=topic=4900.msg61256#msg61256 date=1394980114] Jen - they are not super slippery, no. And you are right, if he weren't tearing round like the hooligan he is (when uninjured, right now he is in a crate or on a lead), they wouldn't be bad at all. So hoping in time I can relax things a bit. I live in an old house. The large hallway is a very beautiful It is!ive seen it ,as it the rest of the house and I certainly didn't notice the rug shop look ;D The only place it looks good is Charlie's room! He has a big child's playmat with a farm animal theme. It looks fab, and very cheerful, I think! [/quote] It does!ive seen it! X
Re: Trimming fur on feet I trim the hair on barley's feet but for medical reasons, and because he has yeti feet when they are left too long between trimming. Our kitchen is the only un rugged place downstairs, and only the bathroom upstairs. Our dining room does have a laminate floor but soon after getting puzzle and how much she slipped on it as she would charge around at 100mph were as barley chooses a leisurely walk. We ended up covering most of it with a big rug, just infront of the door ways and under the table are still laminate but, hardly any slips now. She does still slip a bit when she is eager to get out of her cage as it sits on the edge of the rug and is desperate to get out or in, but nothing much.
Re: Trimming fur on feet No Julie you are right you can't cover those gorgeous floorings. What about if you went to a carpet shop. You know a family run one rather than a big superstore type and see if they could make you runners and mats to match and compliement your big rugs. The carpet shop in our local village make mats out of carpet ends. They have a machine to bind around the edges. I got my mum one for infront of the fire for £5 . Perhaps you would feel happier with the strategically placed mats if they matched ?
Re: Trimming fur on feet Never heard of a Labrador having fur trimmed on feet ???, Charlie has never had that done but Hattie gets hers done everytime she is clipped as she does have a long coat and I believe excess fur between the toes can be painful x
Re: Trimming fur on feet [quote author=charlie link=topic=4900.msg61288#msg61288 date=1394989456] Never heard of a Labrador having fur trimmed on feet ???, [/quote] The hydro centre suggested it - they said they wanted to do it because they thought the fur had grown during restricted exercise. I'd never heard of it either until they said. Yes, I think the answer is probably invest in some nicer mats. Sigh. I'm just hoping for my mop-and-it's-done hard floors back, really. Hate taking up billions of mats to clean. Probably have to resign myself. Maybe the need for quite so many will reduce over time.
Re: Trimming fur on feet Have you tried Paw Wax? http://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/paw-wax-50g-dog-paws-protector It's worth a try, I reckon .
Re: Trimming fur on feet That's good stuff. We used to use it a lot when showing dogs on slippy slidey floors
Re: Trimming fur on feet [quote author=Jules link=topic=4900.msg61966#msg61966 date=1395243112] Have you tried Paw Wax? http://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/paw-wax-50g-dog-paws-protector It's worth a try, I reckon . [/quote] I tried this when Dexter was little and he used to look like he was ice skating Bolero!to be homest I think it made him slip even more on our marble floors ??? X
Re: Trimming fur on feet Julie, my suggestion would be to hang on a little longer with you patchwork look, if you don't want to go to the expense of getting new matching carpets. I think you will find that Charlie will settle down as he matures and in another year won't be racing around quite so much. We have laminate in our living room and vinyl flooring in the kitchen, and Simba has never slipped on them because of running around - he was a year old when we got him and still had an odd tear around but thankfully that was mainly in our lower (carpeted) level. But that inside tearing around has calmed quite a bit - he will still have a good zoom around the yard when he's feeling frisky. You might be surprised - once Charlie has settled into his "home" routine again you may see that crazy puppy stuff has diminished quite a bit. On an aside - we went to the dog park last weekend. There is a large area where the snow has been pushed aside and levelled, which is great, but with the melting we'd had that whole area was basically a skating rink. Simba went barrelling in there to greet a dog (he hasn't played with a dog in weeks, so couldn't blame him) and hit the ice and went skidding into the other dog, knocking him over. Meanwhile there was a young boy there throwing a tennis ball for the dogs ONTO THE ICE so they would run after it and go sliding and crashing to get it....great hilarity, of course....all I could think of was "Cruciate! Cruciate!" I got out of there as fast as I could...went down to the other end where there was just snow and found another lab to play with and then skedaddled away.
