Thursday, July 23, 2009

question about toenails...


Okay, I need some audience participation on this one. The other night, David and I noticed that there is a dark ring around Grace's toenails at the base where they are growing out of the toe. It looks as if they are growing in dark (like most Weims). Right now they are very light, almost translucent. All we can guess is that this might be due to her extreme malnourishment while very young. I've included a picture (the best I could do with the wiggle-worm) for you to see what I'm talking about. Any thoughts would be welcome!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is probably a good sign that her nails are growing. Whether the darker color is due to maturity or better nutrition is unknown as I am not a vet (I am a doctor for humans). However, I do know that since the rings are showing on all nails and are in symmetric or concentric cirlces (i.e a pattern is being observed on each nail) this is more likely that it is something intrinsic rather than local.

I think as long as no other bad signs are happening such as flaking or excessive licking of her paws, you should be ok to wait and see.

I really think you are on the right track though. Keep up the great work!

SARGearJunkie said...

Yeah, I'd watch and see that there is no excessive licking as it might turn out to be yeast.

My weim had similar looking nails and it turned out to be the start of a pretty nasty yeast infection on his paws.

Anonymous said...

hi there. we have a young weim as well and and around 4-6 months of age we began to notice this dark colouring on her nails too. i asked the vet and he explained that it had to do with the pigment being "woken up". nails are generally clear unless they have been subjected to trauma. Trauma meaning just being hit on ice or knocked off something etc. Her nails have all turned clear again (she is a year and half now) nothing to worry about. I was concerned that it had to do with nutrition or something like that. It should be ok, just keep an eye on them, if they aren't bugging her they are ok!