Paw Issue (Hopping on Hard Ground)

Hi all, Hoping for a bit of advice/best way to treat if anyone knows what’s going on here and can pin point the issue. essentially my border collie has been limping/hopping on his hind left leg last week or so, but oddly absolutley fine on Sand/Soft grass ect no limp.  He has been to our vets and removed an immediate worry of Hip Displasia. Only last couple days I’ve noticed this form on his paw pad which I guess explains his reluctance to put paw down on hard ground. i have been bathing in Epsom, isoderm and Luecillin so far. what is hard is the answer may be rest but this is hard with a 1 year old border collie. I have done some research but could be a number of things I’ve seen. any help greatly appreciated thanks.  

Hello - you are astute in that this could be one of a number of things.  Collies often do show signs of hip dysplasia quite young but hip dysplasia seldom presents like this;  perhaps a pre-existing limp might cause abnormal weight-bearing and contribute to an ulcer, but this one is very central to the pad, which would be unusual.  Simple trauma my be a possibility; the sort of injury acquired by standing-on-an-upward-poking nail.  It might be possible that a foreign body is still inside the pad (or indeed, is working its way out).  You'd likely know if an overgrown toe-nail had peirced that pad.  Other possibilities such as hookworm, distemper, leishmaiasis and other auto-immune podermatitis may also be on your vets' possibilities list.  One that I might be especially keen to rule out is cutaneous vasculitis;  damage connected to the blood supply to the centre of the pad, which can be urgent.  Because there is such a wide list of possibilities, we would strongly recommend asking your vet to triage the case in order to judge how soon they would like to see the patient.

Good morning Liz, Thank you for you detailed and informative response. I agree with all, it’s proving very hard at this stage of nailing down the issue. We have Metacam and general Hygiene aid/drugs to use and monitor for a week or 2 first and if nothing we will head back to Vets for a more hopeful positive diagnosis. I don’t want to be naive to rule out the worst in his hips, but our vet did do his initial checks in Mobility/Range of Motion and Feeling round and seemed confident in it wasn’t a worry of his at that stage so fingers crossed. I’m confident it’s something with his paw that’s bothering him, for me it’s odd that it only seems to be concrete that bothers him. Thanks again and I would just like to make the observation of what a wonderful thing you offer on here and this service. Good/Bad I’ve been looking through and simply putting a pet owners mind at ease or direct them to seek help in the immediate term, I think it’s great. Thanks!