Color of pads how important is it to you and why?

[twist]

Want to hear everyones thoughts on this as I have had several people ask what color of pads my hounds have and when I say I have a mix of dark and pink they right away are worried about light colored feet. Tell me your thoughts on this issue.

[dwalton]

Twist: I think the color of feet go back to the belief that a horse with a light hoof has soft hoofs. A dog with light thus has soft feet. I don't think it holds true on either one. With my limited experience [ several hundred dogs and 40 or 50 horses and mules that I have owned] the best horses feet that I have seen have been light but striped . A dogs foot will get darker with age. I can think of several dogs that have had poor feet in the last 45 years, all of them were dark feet. I can not remember a light footed dog with poor feet. I am sure you will get a lot of response to the contrary of this but I ain't changing my mind. Dewey

[Redwood Coonhounds]

I could care less. I have some with all black, some with mixed, and some that are mostly pink. I don't have an issue with any of them. Not even when they are out of shape really. The first real hard run, they might be a little tender the next day, then after that, seems like they toughen up, and there's never an issue.

I think a LOT of people are more visual than anything. Dogs with black feet you can't see the worn spots and scratches like you can on pink feet. Doesn't mean that they aren't there.

I will say I've had 4 dogs with terrible feet. All of those dogs had Black pads. One was a Trigg, one was a Redtick, one was a Walker/Plott, the other a Plott. Had a Bluetick/Walker for a very short amount of time, and he was pretty sissy footed too.

I have seen a dogs feet get darker with age as mentioned above. I have a 5 year old who's feet used to be black/pink. They are now completely black. She also now has a few black toenails. They've gotten darker with age as well. Her feet are darker and her face gets whiter with every run it seems.

[larry]

I've driven enough nails in white footed horses to know that they are softer, soft footed horses don't crack as easy, but the horse and dog application is much different. i can't find any benefit to a soft footed dog. far as dogs go, i think the conformation of the feet plays into it some, I have also seen issues with feet that were frozen at one point in time, regardless of color. when I owned pink footed walkers the blood in the snow never lied about what was goin on with their feet, i haven't seen a bloody dog track since eliminating that breed and foot color from the program.

[high desert hounds]

I don't think it matters a bit what color a dogs feet are. As long as you keep the dog in shape. I have a year old dog that is the fastest hardest running dog i have ever hunted. when i first started hunting the dog it would just eat its pads off running so hard. I thought the dog would never make it over here and almost sent him back to the west side. It didnt take long for his feet to harden up or what ever it is that feet do. That dog has all white feet and can run harder, faster and farther than any of my blue dogs or my nance dogs. I have friends that come here and hunt in the winter and their dogs are not used to the rocky soil or the frozen ice, their dogs are blown the first or maybe second day. Same dogs left over here to hunt for a couple of months and their feet are fine.
James G. Moore 541 413 2005

[Mountainhound]

It matters to me I have had had several with the pink/light colored pads and they never seemed to hold up. Maybe it's like Cassandra said and it's harder to tell, but I don't believe so. I have had dogs that thier pads were a mix and the pink was always more raw than the darker parts. I will not own a hound ever again that has pink pads.

[Trueblue]

I can only speak from my own experience but pink feet have never worked out too good for me.I hold foot toughness at a premium because I bear hunt my dogs as many days as they can handle.When you run dogs 4 and 5 days a week on bears you find out real quick what holds up and what doesn't.I have sold dogs in the past for the reason that their feet just wouldn't hold up.Every one of them had pink feet.I think it is mostly a genetic weakness that can effect dogs with any color feet but I think it occurs more in dogs with pink feet.jmo

[George Streepy]

The only dogs that I have owned that had feet problems had black feet.

[sheimer]

Andy, I believe the color of pads is somewhat important. I also believe conformation of their feet is somewhat important. Not anything compared to proper nutrition.

I don't have a large sample pool like a lot of the other guys and gals that have posted but watching closely to my dogs and the dogs I hunt around, I noticed that the food they are fed means way more to their performance on a long run and the recovery from that run than the color of their feet (or hair for that matter).

Scott

[Geno]

The old timers always said they would never ride a horse with white feet or run a dog with pink feet and the dog had to have a black mouth. I think there is some truth in this but we have tried to breed our horses and dogs better for years and we also dont ride our horses like they used to and there isnt as many of us that hunt 7 days a week to truely put our animals to the test of holding up. I have horses with white feet and just have to try harder to keep shoes on them and have dogs that have pink feet and just try to watch them very close to not run them to hard. I really think if a dog is reall tight footed and really breaks over at the toes he can about have whatever color u want they just seem to hold up. If u look at all coyotes and wolves im pretty sure they are black footed cause if they arnt they probally wont make it in the wild the same with mustangs! Just my thoughts not worth much but thought i would share!!! Gene

[booger]

twist i dont think it real matters what color the dogs feet are if your hunting your dog a lot there going to blow out a pad here and there some thing to keep in mind that Ive noticed with my dogs is when im hunting them a lot is that there geting rubed raw in bettwen there toes and there pad and that seams to lame up my dogs more then blowing pads just another thought clayton

[larry]

Another thing that i have noticed on this site, alot and i mean ALOT of the pictures people post of their dogs, have absolutely aweful feet, those pics get alot of comments like great lookin pup, where can i get one, etc. I expect there will be a few responses to this thread along the lines of, it is normal to blow feet. But hey, if it catches game who cares what it looks like

[Brady Davis]

I don't think it matters a bit...In horses or dogs...

[Melanie Hampton]

I have dogs with "lighter" colored feet and I haven't blown feet out.. And I'm guilty of just taking the dogs out and turning them loose without "conditioning" feet... or them..

I have burned the feet on a dog with "black" feet recently.. My light colored footed (is that a real word?) dogs, in the same shape as black footed dog, were fine after the race..

Go figure huh

[sourdough]

Color of pads is a myth. Blown pads are generally do to lack of conditioning over time and the surface the dog has to travel on. Most hound hunter are folks that have day jobs and weekends are what they have to get their hounds out to exercise and that’s not enough to straighten their pad before the season begins, most hounds blow their pad on the first outing of a hard race and are plagued by it the whole season as again by the weekend they’re ready to travel and one hard race they are laid up until the next weekend it’s a vicious Cycle. A horse’s hoof and a dogs pad are not made of the same material nails yes pad no.

sourdough