Slippery surfaces are one of the most common causes of setbacks during surgery or injury recovery.
Preventing slips is an important part of facilitating your dog’s recovery. You can use rugs, non-slip booties, or you can use ToeGrips. Never heard of them?
“What does she have on her toes?” she asked, thinking it was some kind of decoration.
Cookie’s recovery from iliopsoas injury
According to her physical therapist, Cookie keeps improving steadily.
Obviously, getting this over within a month, as we secretly hoped for, isn’t happening. I didn’t really think so but we were working towards that goal. So now we’re working towards the goal of everything being sorted out in two months. But it’s important to be realistic. Having experience with sore iliopsoas in the past, I know it’s a long journey.
It is crucial not to jump the gun.
Going too fast could only set us back by even longer. So we’re going to play it safe. As safe as Cookie’s enthusiasm allows.
Safety from mishaps
One of the important strategies is preventing setbacks.
This can be easier said than done because Cookie is a high-spirited girl and being on the Trazodone helps but doesn’t change who she is. If Cookie was a car, she’d be a Ferrari.
While there is only so much we can do controlling the outside environment (even though we are trying to work out a treaty with the squirrels), there is more we can do at home.
Iliopsoas injuries often happen from hyperextension, either during jumps or when a dog slips.
Preventing slips is then logically an important part of Cookie’s smooth recovery.
The house we live in right now had a mix of hardwood and tile floors. It isn’t ours and it’s not set for putting down carpets everywhere as we had back at our old place. On top of that, covering all the floors with carpets would solve the problem in the house but that’s not the only place Cookie goes to.
ToeGrips
I was always intrigued by the idea of ToeGrips.
There are other traction products out there, including all types of booties and even adhesive stickers for the pads. My main concerns with those things are how they may or may not interfere with the dog’s perception of the terrain. Their pads are about as sensitive as our fingertips and they use the sense of touch to feel the ground under their feet. What happens when they cannot feel it properly?
There are many videos out there what happens when you put booties on a dog for the first time. The dogs are not impressed. And even though they learn to accept these things, could they cause more problems than they solve, particularly in a driven dog like Cookie?
My thinking is to leave the pads free to interact with the environment.
Even when Cookie cut her paw pad, I bandaged it for going outside to protect the wound but I did my best not to cover anything more than I had to. Fortunately, the cut was on the plantar pad, which is kind of out of the way and I was able to bandage it successfully without covering up the rest of the foot.
Naturally, ToeGrips were what I decided to try in order to prevent slips during Cookie’s recovery.
I didn’t know how long they might stay on Cookie because even with her restricted exercise she still really gets more than most dogs get on their best days. I was not concerned about Cookie trying to work them off herself because she’s a good girl and wouldn’t do such things. JD, I’m sure would.
How it worked
I was right. They don’t bother Cookie in the least.
Not from the first moment, she got them on and not since. It seems she doesn’t even know there is something there. Which is was I was going for. She isn’t too fond of the alcohol smell (they need to be soaked in alcohol prior application so they slide on easily) but that’s the only thing she takes issue with.
So far they’ve been staying on quite well.
It’s been almost a week and we had to replace four of them. So that is much better than I expected particularly since Cookie does go outside and it’s been quite wet and muddy out there.
She seems much steadier on the floors and it seems to have improved her overall posture as well.
Most importantly, there haven’t been any major slips that used to happen from time to time when she got excited. And she still does get excited, believe me.
I’ll make an update when she’s been using them a little longer. I also wanted to have a video to show but among other things, it is impossible to take a video of her running back and forth in this house. I know because I tried. So maybe we’ll be able to film that at some other place.
Related articles:
New Solution To An Old Problem For Dogs With Mobility Issues
Further reading:
What Are ToeGrips?