Frequently breaking her claws...

Hi all, was just after a little advice about my 3 year old golden retriever. She is having great problems with breaking her claws. She did the first one last year and since then is on her 6th broken nail, including ripping out both her dew claws on separate occasions. She tends to damage them when out on walks, she will be running about and then just come back limping. She does like to get into EVERYTHING when on walks, she throws herself about all over the place, especially when playing with our other dog so at first the vet suggested that she was just very clumsey. Most of the nails she has damaged she has somehow ripped them upwards and separated the hard outer nail bit from the red inside bit, so she has normally had to go and get the hanging bit pulled off at the vets. The last claw she damaged was a bit worse so she had to be sedated so the vet could pull it off. I have had a few discussions with the vet about what could be causing all this, she said that some dogs just have softer nails. I keep them trimmed regularly, they are as short as I dare trim them (which is fairly short) but they just keep breaking!! The vet is ordering some 'coatex' capsules as she said they may help, all I can manage to find out about them are that they are made up of 'essential fatty acids' and from what I gather are mainly for their coats and skin conditions. Do you think these capsules will help? She is currently having 'Salmopet' salmon oil and has been for a while now with her food (which is Timberwolf Organics kibble) so I can't think that her diet is lacking anything?
She is majorly mopey at the moment as she is restricted to short lead walks while the TWO claws that are currently damaged have time to heal (she damaged her fornt claw and then a week later pulled up a nail on her back paw) We have even noticed today that she is starting to hold up her OTHER back leg aswell, but I barely dare even look!!

Anyone have any ideas as to what is causing such problems with her claws...or what we can do to help?

I don't really have any advice to be honest. But I do have a Terrier Cross that has suffered the same thing since I got him (10 years ago).

For him it was just a case of waiting for the nail to drop off so the new one could regrow. I often wondered if it was something to do with him being neglected as a pup/youngster? There's no doubt it was very painful for him, but it just seemed he was predisosed to them unfortunately.

Good luck in finding a "cure", will be interesting to see what you find.

Sorry i havent got a clue whats causing it good luck in finding out though
+ mine keep cutting ther pads alot recently because of all this glass that keeps getting dumped so we been changing are walking route no more so far but i did start looking into some type of strong boots for them to wear dunno good luck let us know how you get on

Read something similar on another forum recently, and the vet thought her dogs had some sort of infection.
Her dogs have had to have their claws removed, as they kept dropping out!

Perhaps ask if it could be some sort of fungal infection?

Hi Em there are a couple of nail diseases (one immune-mediated disease, another is ringworm with a yeasty secondary infection), they can be very painful for a dog. Samples from the nail can be taken but that doesn't always reveal very much.

A good diet rich in essential fatty acids is thought to help some dogs, the salmon oil is good and contains Omega 3 evening primrose oil is also good and contains Omega 6 though a good we/l balanced food should contain both .

Added just had a look at Timberwolf and it does contain O3 and O6.

You could try shampooing the feet with Tee Tree oil Dog Shampoo (Tee Tree is good for athletes foot in humans which is also of the same family as ringworm) .

I would even try a Tee tree Cream or Gel like Thursday Plantation but hesitate to recommend this as a small number of dogs have been found to have a reaction to Tee Tree though I have used it without problems
.http://www.all-ages-vitamins.co.uk/t...plantation.asp

Friend of mine had a Beardie whose nail's shed their outer hard covering. She gave him some Biotin in powder form on his food(one level teaspon)each day & the keratin in the biotin stopped it happening after a few weeks

Thank you all for your helpful replies, she (fingers crossed) hasn't broken another one yet, but then again she has been on lead for the last few weeks (of which she is not too happy about!) so we will see how we go, Ive been bathing her feet regularly to keep them clean and have washed them a few times in a tea tree shampoo that I got for her, also have ordered some Biotin capsules as it sounds like they could help too. Thanks again everyone!

Thats good fingers crossed she doesnt break any more

Don't have a scooby about what could be causing it re diet ect, give her some evening primrose oil aswell. Inka has just had a really badly infected quik removed this came about after he damaged his nails when he jumped down from the work top, caught him self on the handle of the fridge...any way the quik has been removed and the nail has been cut right back into the nail bed so he looks like he has no nail on that toe and the vet has told me it could take 10 months to heal . Maybe its longer healing time she needs, sorry can't be of help, hope you get some piece of mind soon.