My young lad, 22 month old Weimi, has recently been injured by something sharp in a pond, unfortunately whatever it was entered his paw just in front of his main pad and up into the soft skin and into his toe, damaging one of his tendons.  He has been rested for nearly a week and is fine now, not limping, but he has been left with a 'flat toe'.  The vet, who I have the utmost faith in, offered his personal opinion about my lad being operated on, which would be major surgery.  He said the outcome may not improve his appearance and stitching the sheath and tendon may not work - it would be only for cosmetic purposes to do so, and I agreed that I wouldn't go along that route.  Apparently there are two tendons that are housed in a sheath along the toe and he has injured one, the other is fine.  Has anybody experienced this and could they give me some advice as to the longterm effects of having a 'flat toe' would be.  I have had dogs all my 51 years and I have never come across this before, its just really bad luck as has been swimming in this pond ever since he was a puppy.  I don't show my lad but do  quite a bit of obedience work with him.  I am having a boot made for him to protect his foot when I resume taking him to the woods sometime next week.

My big Ridgeback male also damaged a tendon in a toe on one of his rear feet.  He has been left with one very strange looking, long, flat toe.  He did it about 3 years ago and it doesn't seem to have affected him at all.  It doesn't worry him in the slightest and he is a very active dog (says me as he is lying upside down on the sofa beside me!). My vet said they could try to repair it when it first happened, but said the repair was unlikely to work as he is a big, heavy dog so I couldn't see the point in subjecting him to surgery, even though I do show him. 

Hope that gives you some reassurance.

Thankyou ridgielover.  Does the nail on your Ridgeback toe also 'stand up', this bothers me as it could catch on the undergrowth and Im afraid it could be ripped, I have always kept my Weimi's nails short as he is normally in the woods everyday as he doesn't walk on pavements, he never stops running when he is in the woods.

Hi Enzo
No, the nail doesn't really do that, but I also trim his nails fairly often, so am just careful how I trim it.  Is it a front or rear foot on your boy?

Hi ridgielover
His flat toe is on his front right paw - the middle toe of all places!  I

I've seen a couple of Ridgebacks with a similar problem, with a sticking up claw, but I don't think any of them have had any serious problems, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.  Just think of it like a dew claw - lots of people have them taken off pups as they can get caught.  None of mine have ever (touching wood now!) damaged their dew claws.
I was lucky that my boy's was a rear foot, only because it's a little less obvious and, as I said, I show him.
Best of luck

I've not had this in one of my own dogs but I've known a couple of coursing deerhounds who ruptuered the tendons to a toe. In each case the toe caused problems when the hound was running flat out and the toes were amputated rather than having the tendons repaired. After the amputation the hounds resumed their coursing career successfully and seemed to have no ill effects from the loss of the toe. Cosmetically the result was not very noticable - but then deerhounds have hairy feet.  Those were competitive coursing hounds running over very hostile terrain and anyway the breed's greatest pleasure is running flat out. I don't know if a 'flat toe' woulf hinder an obedience dog and non-sighthound significantly.

Hi Jas,
This is all very interesting.  My vet has advised me to just keep an eye on his toe, inflammation, limping, tendonitis etc, if this happens he said the toe may have to be amputated but this is a worst case scenario, he has amputated his own dogs toe because of problems with tendonitis but it hopefully wont come to that.  The only way I could stop my weimi from running around, playing in the woods, chasing squirrels and rabbits, would be to keep him on a lead and at such a young age I wont do that as he has a life to live.  Its not the end of the world if he lost his middle toe, its probably the best one to lose if it came to it!  I see a couple of dogs in the woods who only have 3 legs and they run around just as well as if they had 4.

Thankyou Jas and Ridgilover, I am very greatful for giving your time to reply, this is a very good website to be involved with, Im not so bothered now. I wish you both and of course your dogs the very best.

I certainly wouldn't stop your boy from leading a full life because of his toe. If it does turn out that it gives probelms and has to be amputated the loss of a toe should have no effect on your boy once the wound has healed. The deerhounds I was talking about both returned to sucessful coursing over moonscape Scottish peat hag and heather, so they weren't held back by the loss of a toe!

Best of luck anyway - hopefully the toe won't trouble your Weim.

Thanks Jas