One of my shelties has bad reactions to some ice melt stuff, it's not salt it's chemicals. If he even walks on it for a minute he can't put his feet down. So he wears boots in the winter as I can't exactly wipe his feet off mid walk. My other sheltie is fine no matter what. My rottie can't stand really cold temperatures. Every dog is different in what they can tolerate.
I have had to carry my dogs over areas of broken glass while out walking as well...thankfully that was just with the shelties... and I don't consider my city to be dirty.

Nicole -- I have the muttlucks for the shelties and they stay on really well. They only wear them in the very coldest part of the winter, but they've withstood the shelties crazy running for about 5 years now.


You've repeated mostly what I said in my first post. "If their feet are healthy" . Your sheltie has problems so of course he will need boots. If my dogs had problems I might consider them but since in all the years I've owned sheopherds no once did I run into a problem I don't use them obviously. Why spoil a good thing ? It would be like taking meds "in case" I ran into a problem. If it isn't broke, then don't fix it.