Dermapaw

Dermapaw is an ointment for "soothing relief for itchy paws, sores, and dog skin allergies." It contains petroleum jelly, cod liver oil, chamomile oil, lavender oil, evening primrose oil, sage oil, vitamin E, and beeswax. It can be used on the skin of both dogs as well as people (though you might not want to rub it around your nose due to the very slight cod liver oil smell--I learned that the stinky way). Other than the ever so slight cod liver oil odor, the ointment smells really good. Not perfumy or clingy, just natural floral-ly.



The creators of Dermapaw are very nice, and aside from the ointment, they came up with an ingenius way to keep socks on dogs' paws. Because at some point in your dog's life, he's going to have an irritation around his paws that he'll try to chew and lick and lick and chew. You can put ointment on it but he'll just lick that off too. You put some kind of e-collar on him, but the collar looks uncomfortable or just doesn't work very well. And eventually, you'll try putting some socks on him. But the socks will invariably fall off.

The Dermapaw people have thought of a very simple way to keep the socks on.



You simply take some children's tube socks (a snug fit works better than a loose fit) and elastic string. Poke a hole on the outside of each sock and loop the elastic through the holes. Put the socks on your dog and pull the elastic over his shoulder. Boomer is sporting just 2 front socks (and he's not happy about it), but you can do this on all 4 paws, although I've had trouble keeping the back socks on--probably because I'm not tying the elastic properly. I've found that the socks won't stay on indefinitely, and I think they'd fall if your dog is running around. But to use at night, while your dog is sleeping, or even around the house, this works quite well.

You can buy these socks ready made from Dermapaw but they also show you how to make your own: http://www.dermapaw.com/Home-made_sock_harness.html

Be sure to watch their videos. My favorite is this one:



I just love how the little dog plays dead so nicely. I doubt there are many other dogs out there you can just flip over onto their back like that (I'm sure Popeye would try to take out a finger first), but luckily, flipping over isn't necessary.