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| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 3) |
| Author | Comment |
Elaine
Dec 4, 05 - 5:17 PM |
to bootie or not to bootie
Hi there, I would like to hear opinions on snow conditions that warrent booties on trips 20 miles or less. Obviously rough ice, crusted over snow that would cut wrists or very sticky snow that could cause snow balls to form are what I have been doing. I went out for 10 miles a couple days ago on trails that had 2 inches of powdery snow over various kinds of snow (packed, and some patches of rough ice (with snow over it)in swamps. When I got back I noticed the white pads on some of my dogs looked pink and worn off the rough texture. The black pads looked ok though. I hesitate to boot up since I hit overflow too along the way and would have to change everybody's booties after getting wet. Any thoughts? |
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Bryan
Dec 4th, 2005 - 7:29 PM |
Re: to bootie or not to bootie
Elaine, It all depends on who you talk to. Just finished the Iditarod rookie meetings and Jeff King says he booties every dog every run. It all should depend on what you want and what your dogs need in my opinion. Does it hurt to bootie them every time? No, unless maybe if you're on glare ice for a long distance and you want that extra traction. If your training the dogs, I don't think it even hurts for you to start off with the booties on, run through the overflow and then change them on the trail. It is good practicve for both the musher and the team to learn to be patient. Have my dogs worn a bootie yet this season? No. I haven't found the so no be overly abrasive or "packy". My individual dogs seem to have feet that handle these conditions just fine. Last year by this time almost my whole team would have been in booties, different dogs, different feet. I don't think I would be concerned about the white pads turning pink, after running 10 miles feet pounding repeatedly on the ground I would expect the feet to be pink from the increased blood flow. I'd also expect that they would appear smoother as they were getting wetter from melting the snow with their body heat. I would be cautious because of all that minor trauma to watch for the first sign of trouble, small slits, swelling, etc. The one thing I strongly caution is not to use milage as a marker on bootying, look at Iditarod, we may only go 8 miles that first day but may double bootie at the start and re bootie after 4 miles. |
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scott
Dec 5th, 2005 - 8:25 AM |
Re: to bootie or not to bootie
Its hard to argure against anything Jeff says. However,the difference is the amount of miles he puts on his Iditarod team and the pounding the dogs feet takes is why he booties every run. DeeDee dose the same as probably dose every other top musher. I might maybe boot no more then 400 miles a year myself and even though I don't run Iditarod I put as many if not more miles on my dogs by March as dose most people running. The bootie was made for foot care. Now its used for foot prevention. In my meager opinion dogs are over bootied in many cases that causes the feet to become soft I think. Its just like always wearing gloves when you work and then one day you don't have them and your hands pay the price. We use to call pink paded hunting dogs soft feet because as they got wet they got nicked and split there pads easier then black padded dogs. Or so that was the thought behind it that I'm not so sure of anymore. just like peoples hands get when in water to long they shrivel up and if you tryed to work with your hands in that state you would tear them up bad. I don't find it to be as true with the northern breeds. I don't believe in booting a dog for every run. About the only time I boot is when the snow is crystallized/crusty. If a dogs foot snow balls thats my fault for not maintaining the the foot by proper trimming of the hair or applying something between the toes to the hair to keep it from happening most of the time. There's always exceptions. On really cold days I will bootie also. The cold sucks the moisture right out of there feet and will crack there pads. Don't forget to trim those nails and don't let them wear down to far or bootie the dog so they don't. |
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