Poppy's Snow Shoes

I want to tell you about Poppy’s snow shoes. I bought them a few years ago when we were living in New Hampshire. They were to protect Poppy from getting ice balls in between her toes. The first time that happened I thought Poppy was injured.

It was early winter and the yard was covered with a foot deep of snow. Poppy went out to play. She was fine at first, then I noticed that she was slowing down. Soon after she was limping, and by the time I got to her she was not able to walk.

The snow had been melted by her body heat and had formed into ice ball between her toes and her paw pad, one ice ball in each paw. They were rock hard and painful for Poppy if I tried to pull it because the ice was compacted and had fused with the sensitive hairs on the underside of her paws.

After that experience, Poppy always wore her shoes when we went out to play with fresh snow.

We live in Florida now and even though it doesn’t snow here Poppy still wears her snow shoes sometimes. This year Poppy had a few episodes of skin problem due to insect bites. Small areas of her skin would become inflamed and sometimes infected.

In our effort to think of ways to stop Poppy from scratching the inflamed areas with her legs, my husband has one of his “think outside the box” moments and said to me “Snow Shoes”.

Here is a picture of Poppy I took back in April. She has an area just behind her right ear that was troubling her. With the snow shoe on her back leg, she could itch herself to get some relief but not able to do any damage. We were able to care for Poppy by applying medication on the infected area and the skin healed very quickly.

Poppy is all better now and has her long coat again.

Poppy's shoes are made by Ruffwear. The soles of the shoes are made of rubber material, have great traction and they really give good protection to her paws.