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Dew Claws


jazawayaya
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So I was getting sat on while I was on the couch last night as usual when I noticed my new puppy has no dew claws... she has little scars where they were so I suppose they were removed...

My older boy from the pound still has his...

So I am wondering why they would be removed and should I worry about Banjos not being removed?

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There should not really be little scars but maybe they were removed at a later age than the usual.

I don't know the breeds or reason why some are removed but with my toy poodles & some little fluffy breeds the reason is that dew claws are often overlooked & not trimmed. Then they can grow around & pierce into the skin resulting in pain & infection.

My preference would be to leave them on, I don't find they catch on things & have done on some of my own dogs, however I have also seen many left overgrown & it is not nice. Better safe than sorry I guess.

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There should not really be little scars but maybe they were removed at a later age than the usual.

I don't know the breeds or reason why some are removed but with my toy poodles & some little fluffy breeds the reason is that dew claws are often overlooked & not trimmed. Then they can grow around & pierce into the skin resulting in pain & infection.

My preference would be to leave them on, I don't find they catch on things & have done on some of my own dogs, however I have also seen many left overgrown & it is not nice. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Not so in my experience, usually a small area where sometimes the hair doesn't return...

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So I am wondering why they would be removed and should I worry about Banjos not being removed?

Plenty of dogs have (and use) their dew claws :) As long as they are well attached and you keep them short they are nothing to worry about at all.

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I had my JRTs dew claws removed about a year ago because she was constantly ripping the nail off by getting them caught, she is a terror when it comes to having her nails cut and the dews needed doing more often as they dont wear as much

I was going to get my Goldies done when I got her desexed but after consulting dol I decided to leave them as Im planning to do agility with her and they get some use out of them, also most of the Goldie owners said they have never had issues with their dogs dews

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Do you mean front, rear or both.

When I 1st went to see April at her breeders he told me he had forgot to take the rear dew claws off at birth & would do then b4 picking her up. I thought this was a regular thing & thought nothing of it. When we picked her up he said he still hadn't taken them off.

At that time, 1993, I had not seen many dogs that had rear dew claws, didn't like the look of them & had April's removed when she was desexed at 6 mths. It was messy & looked awful, took longer to heal than the spay wound. After the hair grew back I never noticed any scars. I have since also seen other breeds that have had the front ones removed as well.

In the years since, I have been lead to believe that many puppies are born without their rear dew claws, is this true? I have seen very few dogs with their rear dew claws.

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Do you mean front, rear or both.

When I 1st went to see April at her breeders he told me he had forgot to take the rear dew claws off at birth & would do then b4 picking her up. I thought this was a regular thing & thought nothing of it. When we picked her up he said he still hadn't taken them off.

At that time, 1993, I had not seen many dogs that had rear dew claws, didn't like the look of them & had April's removed when she was desexed at 6 mths. It was messy & looked awful, took longer to heal than the spay wound. After the hair grew back I never noticed any scars. I have since also seen other breeds that have had the front ones removed as well.

In the years since, I have been lead to believe that many puppies are born without their rear dew claws, is this true? I have seen very few dogs with their rear dew claws.

It depends on the breed. Some never have rear dew claws, some always have them, some like Briards have double ones that are a requirement of the breed standard and in other breeds like Borders Collies, some have them and others don't. In Border Collies they seem to be a dominant genetic trait and only occur in some of a litter where one of the parents was born with them. If present they should be removed at 2-3 days but occasionally a breeder forgets to check for them and they have to be removed later.

All dogs are born with front dew claws and in some breeds they are routinely removed at a few days. The smooth coated breeds and those that are clipped like poodles, generally have them removed to avoid them catching on things. If the breed generally has dew claws that stick out, they tend to be removed but in coated breeds that have them neatly tucked in, removing them is not so common and most Border Collie breeders do not remove them. A few prefer removal if they have ever had issues with them but in Australia they are in the minority. There is also some recent research indicating that dogs that still have their front dew claws are less likely to damage their wrists when working in activities like agility. Apparently they help with the stability of the wrist when turning. I think there was a link on here somewhere to the research.

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Our rescue boy has his, our purebred puppy had hers removed. Our boy "grabs" things with his all the time, he holds his Kongs upright with them and also holds toys with them. The puppy finds it much harder to eat her Kong and we joke that she "has no thumbs" :rofl::laugh:

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My dogs all have their dew claws.

Poor Diesel managed to rip one of them off, but it has grown back again (a bit wonky though). But Diesel is my accident prone and allergy dog, so if there is going to be a problem with one of my dogs, it will happen to Diesel!

None of the other dogs have ever had a problem with them.

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