Sophie Bear's paw pads are damaged - is the dog walker at fault?

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Today was their first day with a new dog walker. She took them to a dog park, even sent me a video of them playing. I was so happy that they were having fun with their new friends. When I got home Sophie greeted me with the usual enthusiasm, running down the stairs to get to me (she sleeps on my bed when I'm not home :). Then I went to take them for a walk. Sophie was stalling at first, not wanting to walk, which was unusual. She was sniffing at the ground like she was distracted by something but there was nothing there (did she not want to admit that she was hurt?), then as I encouraged her, I noticed she was limping. But not in the usual way that dogs limp when one of their legs are sore. Rather, she was walking like she did the first time I put boots on her feet. She didn't want to put her feet on the ground. I couldn't see what was wrong because it was getting dark outside so I just picked her up and carried her home. I put her back down on the grass but she was still walking that way so we went inside. I looked at her feet under the light. There are small pieces of paw pad on all her feet that are missing and you can see the tender flesh underneath. It's not the whole pad, just small pieces, pretty much on all the paws.

I did a search on here about what to do with torn paw pads (or rather, worn away paw pads??), so I got some good info: keep them dry and clean, don't let her walk on them too much, they will heal quickly, socks help... (Love the new Google search feature!).

My question is, should I be concerned about my new dog walker? She seemed so great otherwise. Do these things just happen sometimes or was there something she could have done? I did notice in the video the dogs were running across the paved pathway chasing each other which is what I'm thinking was the problem. I probably wouldn't have let them do that for too long but then the video is like 15 seconds so who knows how long they were on the pavement for.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Glad to hear she's better. :)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Good news and good thinking.

[Emily]

Ohhh that does hurt! My Mabel decided to leap off the wood balcony while chasing a dog. It was an impressive leap for sure! I didn't think much of it until an hr later she wouldn't walk or get up. Both front paws had a huge round raw spot a little bigger than a nickle on the center pad. I was sooo worried. We ended up placing a lot of neosporin on the raw spots and then she wore baby socks during the day which actually stayed on well! I was surprised she left the socks on. It took about five days to heal.  I saw your recent post and that things are better....that's great news !