I just noticed...
 

Wow...I feel so LAME right now! I noticed the other day on the dog that I have been "fostering", when I was clipping some of his hair on his legs, that he's got a pad kind of about 1/3 of the way up his front legs....I thought it was his dew claws, but I guess not(Obviously I have NO idea what dew claws are), b/c I just checked Max and he's got them too :embarasse . I never noticed them before until I just now checked...what are they? And why are they there? Geeze, and here I thought whoever had this guy before me just didn't take care of them....I'm a DUMMY:( .

Lexie and Tucker have those too and I'm clueless about what they are...:confused:

I will try to answer this until someone better comes along. Dewclaws are kind of like a "thumb" that the dog never developed. Most breeders cut them off some time after birth; I think the first week. If not cut off, they actually have a toenail that grows and needs to be trimmed, sometimes this gets caught on things, and can cause damage to the dog. The little pad you feel is where the dewclaw use to be, just make sure there is no "toenail" growing from it.

OK, thank you! It makes perfect sense to me now, LOL. I can't believe I never noticed it before on Max! I was going to ask if it was a bad thing if they still had their dew claws b/c that's what I thought it was, mainly b/c I thought Max DIDN'T have them. Then I realized there was no nail there, so I decided to check Max and sure enough....his little pads are smaller but they're there. How embarrassing. My next question will probably be just as ignorant I'm afraid:rolleyes: .

Okay, you forced it out of me, but you are NOT alone. :rolleyes: Gizmo has a dewclaw that the breeder, the breeder's vet, my vet, two groomers and myself ALL missed! The person who found it was Jaimie (YorkieCrazy) when she yorkiesat for Gizmo in February. Boy, did I feel dumb! She was really nice about it when she told me though. lol!

At least you didn't miss whole dewclaw!!:rolleyes:

Don't feel bad, I've owned a lot of dogs in my life, and never even heard of a dewclaw until I came to YT. This place is so enlightening.

Learn something new everyday...
 

That isn't a stupid question...we learn new things daily...keep exploring.

LOL...thank you. I don't feel quite so clueless now....it's like I know birds inside and out and to me it seems like they would be so much more complex that a dog but I swear, there's something new I learn about dogs every single day here! I swear, and you can trust me on this...I will NEVER get another dog besides a Yorkie...it's too steep of a learning curve and I'm too old to learn any other dogs, hehe!

That's kind of funny:D . But if they'd had them....I probably would have missed them too, LOL.

OK..so this was going to be my original question, LOL...what did you do about it? Are you leaving it or will it be removed? I know they normally remove them at the same time that they dock the tails (or that's what I thought anyway)when they're puppies....if they didn't have them removed then, do you just leave it, or do you have it removed when they're older?

Okay....let me try to explain this without pictures..LOL. Okay..look at your hand. Your wrist is called the "carpus" and is made up of three carpal joints. The bones between your wrist and fingers are the metacarpal bones. Then you have your fingers that are made up of three phalanx bones each, except for your thumb which is made up of only 2 phalanx bones. Your thumb is digit one, and your pinky would be digit 5.

Okay...so dogs basically have the exact same structure to their paw as we do for our hands. They have a carpus (ie wrist), metacarpal bones, and 3 phalanx bones per digit, except for the declaw which has 2 phalanx bones just like our thumb does.

Dogs have 4 weight-bearing digits (2-5). Digit 1 is the dewclaw (the equivalent of our thumb). It is higher up..just below the carpus.

So far as the pads..dogs have three types of pads on their front paws. The little pad near where the declaw would be is the carpal pad (because it is on the carpus). The large pad is the metacarpal pad (because it is under the metacarpal bones). And the 4 little pads are the digital pads (because they are on the weightbearing digits).

Hope that helps

You must think we're a lot smarter than we are. :D



I'm assuming you mean if the nail is still attached, if so, they say you just keep it clipped when you do the other nails, however some dogs have a problem with this catching on things and need to have it surgically removed, because if it's torn off it can cause serious damage. So are you feeling a knobby thing or a nail?

In our case, we're just going to keep the nail trimmed and leave it alone. If it becomes a problem, then we might have it removed during any future surgeries or procedures he has done.

Thanks, MyFairLacy! That was very informative!

Do you know that a dolphin (since being a mammal) has the same hand/arm structure its just bent up and not used inside of the flippers!! Its so crazy to think about it.