Hi all,
GOt an interesting question for you all. On Monday night we took Sheena to flyball practice. Where she worked a lot more then usual because she had progressed to being able to run with the team instead of by herself. So they were testing her a lot with running her in different postions and so forth. Anyway the next day she started to limp so I rolled her over and checked her back pads. She had to thumb sized broken blisters. You could tell they just broke because they were still wet and one of them bled a little. I washed the area of the blisters with warm water and then put polysporin on them. She stayed off her feet yesterday as much as possible.

Today she is doing much better and the area where the blisters are are now black like the rest of the pad. My question is what can I do to help her toughen up her pads. It is my fault they are not tough enough. She is by my side 24/7 and a lot of that time is indoors on carpet.

She is exceling at flyball and I don't want to quit. She loves it too much. You just say flyball and she is at the door with her kong whining. Theres got to be a way to toughen up her pads. Got any ideas?
Sheena

Hi Sheena,
I was recently given advise for my puppies saw paws and was told to bath them in salt water because this is supposed to toughen them up a bit.  I did and a day later they were all fine.

May be a silly question, but, whats flyball?

Dipping poors in a surgical spirit solution helps harden up the pads too.

Reply to Tams
Flyball is where dogs run a set of small jumps to reach a machine at the end. When pressing the pad on the machine it throws a tennis ball. The dog then catchs the ball and runs back down the row of jumps. This is run in teams of four in a relay effect.
Look on www.flyball.org.uk for more info.

Walking on pavements helps a lot, so long as they are not wet. Also worth investing in some paw wax, helps prevent damage and gives good grip.