Dog booties are helpful for senior and geriatric dogs in every season, but which ones are best?

Dog booties are used to protect a pet’s paws from the elements, mostly in winter. The products used to melt ice can wreak havoc on the pads, as well as the skin between, and for some dogs, the cold is just too much. Booties are ubiquitous in my day-to-day as a professional specializing in caring for senior and geriatric pets and those who are receiving animal hospice and palliative care. Aside from the reasons above, they’re used to protect the top and bottom of an an aging dog’s paws when degenerative myleopathy is present, or when they need more grip on bare surfaces, like when mobility is becoming less stable. 

There are lots of brands and styles, but few really measure up to the outstanding protection, affordability and usefulness that the Pawz brand does. My lending library gets lots of donations from families-of-record that I’ve worked with as a Certified Animal Hospice Practitioner, and there’s an abundance of various other brands in it for good reason: they just don’t work as well as they need to. They won’t stay on, they’re too clunky and pose a risk of tripping, or they’re just hard to use. 

Pawz, on the other hand, they stay put. Their simplistic design is why they work—they look exactly like a balloon—but it’s also a double-edged sword: they’re notoriously hard to get on. The small opening lends a snug, secure fit, but trying to open one up whilst fitting a dog’s paw inside is like wresting a boa constrictor. 

The tutorial below details how even those caregiver guardians who need to hurdle that obstable, can, with an unexpected tool. 

With over 20 years of experience in pet care and the past 9 of those focused on animal hospice, Lorrie Shaw is a Certified Animal Hospice Practitioner and Certified Fear Free Professional. She is CXO of Telos Companion Animal Services, LLC and can be found at lorrieshaw.com.