Unfortunately, Scout cracked both of his carpal pads last weekend. Carpal pads are E in the diagram below (from Wikipedia):

From what I’ve gathered from various articles, carpal pads help dogs to slow down, like brake pads. Apparently carpal pad injuries are fairly common, particularly if your dog spends a lot of time on concrete/asphalt/other hard surfaces. Regardless, they are pretty frightening to see. Don’t worry, I’m not going to include pictures of his gross injuries. Basically, he ripped both of his carpal pads while playing in our backyard. I’m guessing this happened on a rock when he was playing fetch.
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