[murphydog1003]

Thought of another question for you guys today!

Murphy has apparently developed pressure sores on his elbows. They're little scabby/scaly spots. We just got back from the vet, just in case it was allergy/bacterial/fungal... She did a skin scraping on it and came up empty handed. Didn't see bugs in it or any eosinophils, which she said she'd see if it were allergies. So anyhow - the consensus is they're pressure spots.

Do these ever go away? They don't seem to bother him, he doesn't itch or chew at them, but they're getting bigger. Vet said to make sure to keep the floor of his crate clean to prevent infection, but that's it. During the day he often chooses to sleep on the floor rather than a soft area (couch etc), so it can't bother him too much. At night he has to sleep on the crate floor since I'm certain that a blanket or pillow left in there with him would become a blanket or pillow I'd have to have surgically removed from his stomach later.

I guess it bothers me more than him. I just don't seem to notice them on dogs, and Murphy's look very visible to me. Will he out grow them as his body fills out more (he's kind of at a lanky phase of growth)? Anyone able to treat them and make them heal?

 

[Amaryllis]

How much time is he spending in a crate? Pressure sores are normally something you see from overcrating.

As to whether or not laying directly on the floor bothers him, that's irrelevant. It's causing him harm, it needs to stop. Dogs do not know what is best for them. (If they did, they wouldn't be eating pillows.)

You can try applying pure Vitamin E (tocopheral acetate) to the sores to help them heal, but I don't know if he'll get his fur back. You can find pure Vitamin E at drug stores in the face cream section, usually on the bottom shelf. Make sure it's tocopheral acetate and not safflower oil.

 

[Shell]

Try a rubber mat (like the kind used for commercial kitchens or the rubber floor tiles sold for childrens' play rooms or gyms). Cut to fit tightly in the crate tray so there are no tempting corners.

You might find also that he doesn't chew thick firm foam (not as much fun to shred)- like the extra-firm mattress toppers.

Kuranda beds are used in shelters a lot since they are really durable and not commonly chewed (nothing to shred or tear into)

Does he have to be crated at night? If he's offered a dog bed in your room at night, you can supervise and he'll likely sleep the entire night (if he got enough exercise during the day). I found that with the last foster-- she had to be crated with no blankets etc during the day because she would destroy anything (beds, blankets, walls...) but at night, she was no trouble at all because she wasn't bored. Plus if she started moving around too much, I'd hear her and wake up.

 

[murphydog1003]

He's definitely not over-crated. We only crate him when we leave the house, and at night. I work from home so the majority of the day he's out and about unless I have an errand to run during my lunch break. This is why I took him to the vet about the patches, because in my mind I couldn't rationalize them being pressure sores. He's a puppy - he's running around being a goofball most of the day, not laying in one spot. But the vet said there's not really anything else they could be...

While I don't want to leave him uncrated at night so he can sleep in my bed, even if I did, I don't think he'd stay in bed all night - he really does prefer to sleep on hard, cool surfaces. He'll stay on the couch for 10-20 minutes, then jump down and finish his nap on the floor. When we were camping, he totally rejected the blanket we brought for him, in favor of the tent floor. A kurunda bed might be a really good solution for him, both cool/firm and more yielding than the floor. I'll look into those. Or the rubber mat idea, I like that too.

Thanks for the replies.