He stands at the edge of the kitchen and does not come in. You call him and he looks at you and stays where the rug ends.
It is not stubbornness. He slipped there once, and dogs remember exactly where.
What is actually going on
A dog grips the floor with the pads of his feet. Two things take that grip away.
The first is the floor itself. Wood and tile give him nothing to hold.
The second is nails. When nails get long they hit the ground before the pads do, and they lift his own grip off the floor. This is the one almost nobody knows, and it is the one you can fix in ten minutes.
Why it matters more than it looks
A dog who is afraid of the floor moves less. A dog who moves less loses muscle. A dog with less muscle slips more. It is a loop, and the floor is the cheapest place to break it.
What you can do this week
- Check the nails first. Stand him on a hard floor. If you can hear the nails clicking, they are long enough to be part of the problem.
- Make one path, not one room. Runners from where he sleeps to where the water bowl is. He does not need the whole house covered.
- Look at the space between his pads. Long fur there turns his foot into a ski. Trimming it takes two minutes.
Do this today: walk him from his bed to his bowl and watch his back feet. If they slide out even slightly on the turn, that turn is where he is going to fall.
AlongPaws makes four things for the moments that get harder. See what we make, or reply to any email with his measurements and we will tell you which size.
