Our foundling puppies had their dew claws – all four legs! – when we found them. Having always gotten puppies from a breeder, dew claws were always removed. We thought we’d have the boys’ dew claws removed when they went in for neutering. Alas, such was not the case.
Dew claws are basically thumbs and grow higher up on the paw. In the first week of life, maybe as much as two, the dew claw is soft tissue and requires a mere snip to remove them. There is a minor wound left behind and healing is as unremarkable as for a minor scrape. However, as the dog ages, this cartilage becomes bone and once bone, it is pretty major surgery – basically an amputation – requiring stitches, bandages, cleanliness and weeks of healing. Of course, this healing will be delayed if the dog messes with the surgery sites! Can you imagine a dog/puppy that wouldn’t? It is quite common for people to do what we had planned, go in once for the neutering and dew claw removal but, after discussing it with our vet, we decided not to. Kona’s and Kai’s dew claws lie close to their legs and the vet did not see any problem with them. Our puppies would certainly not “take it easy” and we were in the middle of our rainy season (complete with mud!) and there would be no way to keep the surgery sites clean, bandaged and unbothered! On top of all that, healing time was just too long.
The primary reason for removing dew claws is they can get caught up in things. I think cosmetics has a lot to do with it, as well. People expect them to be gone. Breeders know this. Now, if you have a hunting dog, you don’t want them to get caught in fencing or some kind of brush that will rip this claw or ensnare the dog! So, it would certainly be a good idea to have no dew claws. That being said, if the dew claw lies close to the leg, there may not ever be a problem. Sometimes these claws will grow outward from the body and whether your dog is a hunter or not, it may be quite dangerous for him or her so you have to weigh the surgery problems against possible injury caused by the dew claw getting caught in something.
I’ve never had a dog with dew claws before and even now it tends to look a little funny. It has been interesting to research and find that many dogs “retain” their dew claws! Of course, with the dew claws on, we have the added responsibility to keep the nails trimmed as they have no way to be worn down naturally. All of us dog owners know that if you let your dog’s toe nails get too long, the quick moves ever towards the tip such that, when you finally get around to trimming you can’t trim too much because you’ll hit the quick and it will bleed like a son-of-a-gun!
I think if I had my druthers, my dogs would not have dew claws – for all the reasons, but mostly because of appearance. It’s what I’m used to. These little boys we have now were already too old when we found them to have the dew claws removed with ‘just a snip’ so it was a done deal from the beginning. And guess what? Matters not in how much we love them!