Fur between the toes

Heidi

So, Lindsay send me this video and at 57:15, she talks about trimming the fur between the dogs' toes. It honestly never occurred to me to trim between my dogs' paws, although I have noticed that Sosuke has pretty long fur between his toes. He does lick the bottom of his feet any time he gets wet or dirty. Rakka has very short fur there, and her feet never seem to become uncomfortable if they are dirty or wet.

So, two questions.

1. Anyone else trim their dogs' paw fur?
2. How furry are your dogs' paws?

Sosuke actually has really long fur there, which is surprising to me because his fur is pretty short and slick over most of his body. I'll have to take a picture.

Losech

Conker's is fine, not too long not too short, nothing ever gets stuck in it. Juneau's is like that too. Sasha has got some wonky looking fur between her toes, but nothing worth trimming for. I honestly find it a bit silly, unless the fur grows in some way that it covers the pads and makes traction slick, or is constantly getting stuff caught in it.

CarabooA

I never trim the hair on their toes but mainly because we get so darn cold here. Mirra the Sib Husky/Bord Collie has super long hair on her toes and she also likes to stay outside a lot in the winter, so I figure she needs it... plus, I don't think she would ever tolerate that... she's really ticklish with her toes...
Maybe if you were in a really muddy environment where it would benefit with mud balls???

lindsayt

The hair tufts on the bottom of the feet and undersides of the toes are what is usually trimmed. It's common to trim the underside of their feet in preparation for shows to help with cleanliness and grip, and this is allowed by AKC. You wouldn't and shouldn't need to trim anything on the tops of the feet in Shibas since it will spoil the cat foot appearance and is also not allowed.

I do have a ton of evergreens in my area and on my property and pitch balls are always a problem, so I see a really good reason to trim undersides of feet since it is for comfort and cleanliness.

Edgewood

I do not need to trim my shikoku's fur on the feet, but when I had siberians, I trimmed as lindsay suggests above. All of them had very furry feet with long hair that curled up from the bottom of their foot below the toes.

renae

Is it this video?

sunyata

Before Nola got sick, she had very furry paws. During the spring/summer/fall seasons, I would leave them be, she was very good at keeping her paws clean. But during the winter months, I would trim them so they would not collect ice balls in the snow. She was much more comfortable with trimming the fur than she was with the nail clippings.

Now, she has no fur between her toes at all. Bella has never had much fur between her paws.

lindsayt

Yes, Joan did that one

Heidi

Does the link in my post not work for others? It works for me, and yes it's the same link you posted.

StaticNfuzz

Yep all my dogs have fuzzy toes and they get trimmed so they do not slip and slide on slick surfaces.

Snf

renae

Oops, sorry @hondru. I didn't notice it till you pointed it out. ^-^; Your link works.

I saw this video posted on pinterest. I'm planning on trimming my little girl's hair at the bottom of her feet, but first I have to wait for a bit.

Crispy

I trim my Mal's hair between his toes when it gets long so he doesn't have one more reason for his noodly-legs to slip out from underneath him.


I know none of the NK have longer coats like in this next example, but I really learned how important it was to keep up with the feet at work. I had the pleasure of digging mats out of a Pyr/some kind of Ovcharka mix's toes and boy, did it look uncomfortable (and Tanker didn't exactly love it, that's for sure). The only reason I was in there was because I'm the only one who can trim this dog's nails without him getting upset/fidgety and realized his toes were practically fused together by his fur.