Lost: Ruffwear Dog Boot at Hyak

Gus lost it on the main Hyak Face run. It's looks exactly like the boot in the attached photo.

Let me know if ya find it.

Damn hard to keep those things on the feet sometimes... what kind of dog is Gus? Does he wear the shoes because of snowball paws? We have little shoes for our aussie mix, but have found that liberally applying "musher's secret" (or Crisco) to the pads and between the toes will do a hell of a job of keeping the snow from building up and we don't have to watch behind us for missing puppy boots.

my pup is a long-haired german shepard.  her feet are such that on snow, she would tear the skin between her pads (and also sometimes at the dew-claw), so boots are in order (never tried the 'secret', though).  bigger problem has been that in some snow, she would develop a monstrous snowball between her hind legs.  It's quite a sight to watch her try to romp with a basketball sized snowball attached.  When it got to be too much, she'd just tip over and wait for me to remove it.  She's too old to go out now, but those were great times.   

I've had trouble with those falling off also.  

My dog also gets snowballs all over her body along with in her paws, so I was thinking about trying to make some sort of boot with full leg covers that attach over the top of her body so that they wouldn't fall off.  She would probably hate it, but I could take her out more often so she would probably get over it pretty quick.

This is our pooch -- she gets the same chest and belly snowballs that you're talking about, JPH.  I don't have a picture of it, but my wife recently got her one of these:

www.k9topcoat.com/product.asp?specific=jnnproo4

While she looks ridiculous and all the other dogs make fun of her, it does a hell of a job keeping the snowballs from building up.  Still have to keep the belly fur trim, since it's cut away there so she can do her business in the skin track.

I should note that we rarely use either the jacket or the booties in this picture -- we usually do musher's secret on the paws and legs and just keep the rest of her coat trimmed short enough that it doesn't ball up too badly.

poor little kitten has lost his mitten :'(

my pup.  just can't bring myself to give her a haircut..

I'll keep an eye out for it this spring. I'm kinda thinking it will be lost until then.

That's an impressive dog suit!

I'll have to give the musher's secret a try this winter.  I've heard PAM works too, so I now have a few things to try.  I've tried dog conditioner which is supposed to work, but it did nothing.

Here's the other problem area, face shots gone wrong!

Here is a cheaper alternative to the expensive booties:

I order a bunch from dogbooties.com .  These booties don't have a cam loop like the expensive ones so you wrap the strap as tight as you can get it.  Other than that, I use vetwrap to pad the dewclaws on the dogs that have them.  One wrap between the claw and the leg, one or two wraps around the claw, then the bootie goes on over that.  This keeps the bootie from causing a leg sore from rubbing and moving the dew claw.   Go easy on the vetwrap, you CAN get that too tight.

Cordura or Toughtek are best for the Cascades.  The felt booties are to prevent ice splinters and it is rarely cold enough here for that..

I don't ever apply booties until the dogs start icing up.

ETA: seems like a lot of folks are interested in ointments. I don't use them because they wear off in about four or five miles, which might be OK for a ski tour. Here is a homemade version: three parts Vaseline, one part lanolin, 0.5 part glycerin.

Ruffwear sells single boots for the bark'n boots grip trex model. We had to replace a boot that got chewed off an injured paw last year.
www.backcountryk9.com/89/0/Products.aspx
mary

Marcus, Gus is a golden retriever. He gets the snowballs real bad. I'm shaving off all his flagging before our next trip. Check it out - this is from that day up at Hyak when he lost the boot --

Oh man... yeah, that's what Hopi looked like after a day in similar conditions. I had to break out my shears and give her an in-the-field haircut, since she was having trouble lifting her legs.

The suit she has is kind of ridiculous (she looks like a speed-skater, or a dog-sausage), but it does the job and she gets to play snowball free.

David Lowry's got the right idea on the booties, I think, and he should know -- he's got a couple of skijoring dog teams that he's posted about in the past. I'm planning on packing some of his kit next time Hopi goes out, since it's much more compact than the ones she has now. She much prefers going barepaw, since she can use her built-in crampons.

I used to live on the Canadian border in Ely, Minnesota. There is a very active dogsledding community up there and I picked up some really effective tricks for dealing with dogs in the snow.

For balls of snow that form on your dogs undercarriage, chest, etc use PAM. Yes, PAM the cooking spray. Before you head out just liberally spray the underside of your dog with PAM and it will keep the snow from sticking. I know it sounds crazy, but for most moderate length day trips the PAM will work for the whole day. By the time you get back most of the PAM will wear off so you don't have to worry about PAM all over your car or house. Do not buy butter flavored PAM or your dog will want to lick it off. People think I'm crazy when they see me spraying PAM on my dog in the parking lot, but it makes the dog much happier on the trail.

Regarding snow balls between foot pads. Musher's Secret is really effective for keeping those balls from forming. The upside is that it still allows your dog to use its claws for traction on ice and rock. A 200g tub will last a long time. You can get it at Amazon pretty cheaply.

www.amazon.com/Mushers-Secret-Paw-Protector-Grams/dp/B0002IJQDM

The one downside of Musher's Secret is that if you are in really cold conditions (northern Minnesota) it doesn't provide any insulation value. If you want dog booties I'd definitely recommend checking out the ones from Kondos Outdoors (they supply most of the dog mushers in Minnesota). These dog booties (in the tall size) have two Velcro closures and stay on way better than others I've used (I still buy one or two extra ones just in case). They are also cheaper than the Ruff Wear ones.

www.kondosoutdoors.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?...KO&Category_Code=DB7