Our senior dog, Bear, is 14. That's 98 or so in human years. Or is that in dog years? In any case, she is an old dog. In the past couple years she has had an increasingly hard time going up and down stairs. She no longer enjoyed going for a walk. It was impossible for her to jump into the car unaided.
We first thought her problems were caused by arthritis, but months of glucosamine chondritin and Rimadyl, the doggie-friendly equivalent of ibuprofen, did not noticeably improve her mobility. Her back legs have gotten weaker. The muscle tone is poor. Poor thing -- her back legs would slide out from under her when she moved or turned too quickly, and often she could not get back up immediately by herself. We also have to lift her back end into the car when she goes somewhere with us.
Today the remedy arrived in the mail from eBay.
Behold!
The booties are intended for winter use protect a dog's pads from snow or frostbite, but they also have rubber soles with tiny treads that grip the ground -- thus, no slipping. They also have little zippers up the front and a long Velcro strap that wraps around Bear's dainty ankles to keep the booties on.
She walked a little gingerly when we first put them on and was clearly a bit confused about the strange *things* back there. But she adjusted to them within minutes. I think she can tell that her back feet are more secure now.
I confess I was a little apprehensive of her ability to adjust to booties. A number of years ago she was with me when I visited a friend who happened to be in the midst of mass producing sewn fleece dog booties. We put a set of four on Bear's feet to see what she thought of them, and it was clear she wanted no part of those weird foot things. Apparently these are okay with her, though.
We hope these improve her quality of life. She seems happy in every other way, so we thought that if we could solve the slipping and falling problem, we could postpone any difficult decisions for a long time. I'll keep you posted on her progress.
