# How do you avoid elbow calluses



## Mareesey (Aug 25, 2016)

I'm trying to figure out how to avoid elbow calluses before my dog develops them. She has beds to lay on and is usually on a bed unless she is hot in the middle of the night. We do play with her on hard wood floors and if her ball rolls under something she does this running slide with her front legs flat so she can slide under dressers etc. She still has fur on her elbows but it is visibly getting thinner and her skin in those spots is flaky. My last german shepherd had an elbow callus that was awful. It would crack and bleed and the vet was no help while it was still rather small, all she did was accuse me of not giving him beds to lay on. This dog would circle the bed for 5 minutes and when he finally laid down an inch of his butt was the only thing left touching the bed. Is there something I should put on her elbows to prevent it or is there only something to be done after they've started to develop?


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## eddie1976E (Nov 7, 2010)

Can't force the dog to lay on beds, mine is always moving around from bed to floor, to the other bed, to the carpet, etc. He developed small ones, and I found Musher's Secrete twice a day helped alot. He has fur growing in those areas, things are crusty/hard/cracked. The key is to keep things soft and keep them from bleeding and getting infected. 

I also read something about silver gel being used.


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## newlie (Feb 12, 2013)

My yellow lab, Max, had calluses on both elbows when we got him. When he became elderly, they started breaking down and bleeding and sort of looked like raw hamburger meat. I asked the vet what to do and he said this was just something that happened sometimes with older dogs. I wasn't content to let it rest there, so I started searching online and found "Canine Angels." These are sleeves that protect both elbows connected with a strap across the back. I got a pair and kept them on Max all the time, except occasionally when I threw them in the wash. Those sores healed right up and never came back as long as he lived. They are not cheap, and laundering seems hard on them, so I would wash only when necessary.

I have since learned about another similar product which I have NOT used, but I think I will try the next time. They are called Dog Leggs and one advantage that I was told they had was that you don't have to get down on the floor and put your dog's front legs through the sleeves as with Canine Angels. I was told Dog Leggs just Velcro around the legs which makes them a lot easier to take on and off. Newlie is still very active and if he wore something like this outdoors, I shudder to think what they would look like when he came in. I think these may run a little more than Canine Angels. but the Velcro would make it well worth it to me.


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## newlie (Feb 12, 2013)

Sorry, I forgot to put the links to their websites:


Welcome to Canine Angels, Inc! Slip-on, Protective Elbow Pads and our Leave On Lift for your dog's comfort and protection!


DogLeggs Canine Veterinary Coverage and Support


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## Mareesey (Aug 25, 2016)

Rogue lays on beds a lot but if I'm in my computer chair she will sleep on the floor behind me or under my computer desk, the only thing I can figure is probably the playing on carpet and the wood floors because she gets some momentum and then slides on her elbows. Nitro would lay pretty much wherever he wanted and it usually wasn't a bed (though he thought surely he was on the bed). He liked the concrete floor in the basement too. I just couldn't believe the vet was so rude to me about it. She accused us of not supplying him with beds and suggested we probably forced him to sleep on hard floors... His also looked like hamburger when he was older, but his was never infected, we kept it clean when it would dry out, crack and bleed, and my mom would put vaseline on it to try to keep it from being dry. Thank you for the suggestions I'll check the sleeves out and the musher's secrete.


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## newlie (Feb 12, 2013)

Mareesey said:


> Rogue lays on beds a lot but if I'm in my computer chair she will sleep on the floor behind me or under my computer desk, the only thing I can figure is probably the playing on carpet and the wood floors because she gets some momentum and then slides on her elbows. Nitro would lay pretty much wherever he wanted and it usually wasn't a bed (though he thought surely he was on the bed). He liked the concrete floor in the basement too. I just couldn't believe the vet was so rude to me about it. She accused us of not supplying him with beds and suggested we probably forced him to sleep on hard floors... His also looked like hamburger when he was older, but his was never infected, we kept it clean when it would dry out, crack and bleed, and my mom would put vaseline on it to try to keep it from being dry. Thank you for the suggestions I'll check the sleeves out and the musher's secrete.



Max came to us with calluses, and although some hair did grow in those areas, it was always patchy. I thought Newlie had a large hygroma on his leg and the only thing I could figure was that it came from repeated trauma since he never just laid down, he always flopped. It turned out, though, that it wasn't a hygroma at all, it was a tumor (benign) that I just had surgically removed last week. So, I know what you mean, the hard surfaces thing doesn't always apply, and you would think your vet would know that. Most of my house is carpeted and both of my dogs spent most of their sleeping hours on my own bed, to which they always had access.


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## Mareesey (Aug 25, 2016)

newlie said:


> Max came to us with calluses, and although some hair did grow in those areas, it was always patchy. I thought Newlie had a large hygroma on his leg and the only thing I could figure was that it came from repeated trauma since he never just laid down, he always flopped. It turned out, though, that it wasn't a hygroma at all, it was a tumor (benign) that I just had surgically removed last week. So, I know what you mean, the hard surfaces thing doesn't always apply, and you would think your vet would know that. Most of my house is carpeted and both of my dogs spent most of their sleeping hours on my own bed, to which they always had access.


Nitro wouldn't bother to get up at times (a lot of them) and he'd stay laid down and drag himself on his side across the floor by sticking his nails in the carpet. He had done it since he was a puppy and then did this and other things to avoid getting up when he developed arthritis at 6. I think another of his problems is he ALWAYS laid on the same side. If he was on his other side it would be a few seconds and then he'd flop on over to the other one.

In the 12 years we had Nitro we didn't find a vet we really liked (had some pretty bad ones) until he was about 10 1/2 or 11. The guy is amazing. We moved to Pennsylvania so we don't use him anymore but my mom adopted a 7 year old german shepherd and she still takes her to him. We had vets who would look at my mom's dogs teeth and without questioning anything or looking at her file they would begin to lecture us on her teeth. She was a digger and wore the front ones between her canines down to the gums (ripping tree roots and rocks out of the ground and flinging them across the yard). I was usually ready for this reaction and would sort of awkwardly shout "she's a digger" before they could wind up into their berating. I had a vet tell me because of the issues Mieke (my mom's dog) had we were going to waste 12+ years on an un-fixable dog and imply we would have better luck putting her down. She was 4 months old and very skittish. Nitro was attacked by a cat the vet had up for adoption at another vet, took it like a champ. The vet had us walking him in a back hallway to see how his back legs were the cat flew ran down the hallway jumped and latched onto the top of his snout and his tongue. My boy didn't try to bite the cat or shake it off, he just looked at me like "what do I do with this thing?"

The really good vets around where we used to live are never taking new patients. If pets died people would save their spot until they got their new one.


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## Remo (Sep 8, 2004)

I have always wondered why some dogs get elbow calluses and some don't. My first two GSDs were Josey and Trooper. Josey developed some terrible calluses and we ended up getting a pair of Dogg Leggs for her and it did help. Trooper never had any issues with them at all. But Trooper's front legs did not bend very well, so when she laid down or got up, it was straight leg action. One theory I have is that it depends on how they get up and down. Who knows??

And although I guess having a soft place to sleep helps, Josey and Trooper both always slept in high quality orthopedic beds, but their elbows were drastically different.


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