Hind leg dew claws – what to do about them

One of the podencos recently rescued from Valencia perrera is Ray, a rough-haired boy who is now in foster with Bev Farmer. He was recently castrated and, at the same time, his rear dew claws removed.

I’ve lived with all types of dogs all my life and been in involved in the rescue of a few hundred, especially from Spain, and I’ve not come across a dog with rear dew claws. So I asked Bev about it and also found this information on the Internet.

Here is Ray a.k.a Captain Fluffy back from losing his manly bits and from having the dewclaws removed from his back legs. He’s sporting lovely green pop socks which he needs to wear for a couple of weeks to allow time for the legs to heal and we have to try to keep him quiet and no running so the stitches do not break.

I’ve had a few rescued podenco with dewclaws on the back legs. They are not like the ones on the front legs, not tight to the skin, they flap all over the place and are quite big. Problem is that they catch easy and it also impedes the gait of the dog because they are compensating for the dewclaws. After removal the gait is much more fluid and straight and there’s no danger of them catching on anything.

This is the third time we have had to do this with a podenco, the first one had double dew claws on her back legs. They were terrible and the claws had grown back into the flesh and embedded. Her gait was all over the place and I am sure would have affected her joints. Of course straight away I cut the nail back so that it was more comfortable and the day after her operation she was moving much more true and fluid.’

More on dew claws on Wikipedia. Scroll down for ‘rear dew claws’.