Split Nail

[blue dusky girl]

Hi, hoping someone is able to offer some advice....

Our 5 year old female blue heeler splits her front left outside nail horizontally approximately every 6 months. This has been happening for the past 3-4 years. She hasn't had any trouble at all with any other nails.

The nail splits right up into the paw so she has to be knocked out to have the nail removed each time.

We have seen two different vets about the problem, the current vet thought to treat for a fungal infection however it apparently wasn't that. This time the vet advised the dog had probably had some sort of trauma to the toe so the nail will probably never grow back properly and recommended either keep knocking the dog out to remove the nail each time it splits or amputate the last digit of the toe where the nail is to have no toe nail. This seems a bit extreme. Does anyone know if taking the last joint off where the toenail is will affect her much. We do a fair amount of exercise and I don't want to be putting her through taking the toe joint off when there could be something else we could try first. Thanks for your help.

[Guest Ams]

Anaesthetic is not without dangers so I'd go for the amputation rather than constantly putting the dog under for a nail removal. Dogs adjust really well with loss of limbs, so a single digit on one toe shouldn't slow it down too much.