Corns – a painful part of life for Greyhounds.

Updated August 2026

If you've ever watched a Greyhound happily walk across grass, only to become suddenly and painfully lame when they step onto a hard footpath, there's a good chance you've encountered one of the most common and frustrating Greyhound foot problems: corns.

The good news is that our understanding of Greyhound corns — and particularly how they can be treated — has changed considerably since we first wrote about them.

What is a corn?

A corn is a hard, circular area of thickened tissue that develops within a digital pad — the smaller pads underneath the toes.

They're found predominantly in sighthounds and particularly Greyhounds, most commonly affecting the central toes of the front feet.

And they can be extraordinarily painful.

A dog with a corn may appear reasonably comfortable on grass or other soft surfaces but become markedly lame on concrete, pavement, gravel or other hard and uneven ground.

For some dogs, that discomfort becomes severe enough that they're reluctant to walk or play at all.

What causes Greyhound corns?

For many years there were competing theories, including viral infection and foreign bodies becoming embedded in the pad.

Current evidence points instead to repeated mechanical trauma or pressure on a particular area of the pad.

Think of a corn in much the same way as a human foot corn. If abnormal or concentrated pressure continues to be applied to one small area, the tissue responds.

That distinction matters because simply removing the corn doesn't necessarily remove the reason it developed.

And that helps explain why Greyhound corns have historically been so difficult to treat permanently.

Traditional treatment

Greyhound owners will be familiar with the long list of treatments that have been tried over the years.

These include regular paring or filing, hulling, creams and preparations designed to soften or remove the corn, surgical excision and, in severe cases, amputation of the affected toe.

Protective footwear can also make an enormous difference to comfort by cushioning and protecting the affected pad from hard surfaces.

These approaches can be very useful in managing symptoms, particularly when surgery isn't appropriate. But recurrence following removal of the corn itself has historically been a major problem because the mechanical pressure responsible for creating it remains.

This led veterinary orthopaedic surgeon Michael Guilliard and colleagues to approach the problem differently.

Instead of treating the corn, could you treat the pressure that was causing it?

From flexor tenotomy to superficial digital flexor tendonectomy

The original procedure was called a flexor tenotomy.

Rather than removing the corn, the flexor tendon beneath the affected toe was cut. This altered the position and loading of the toe, reducing pressure on the affected pad.

The results were extremely encouraging.

As experience with the procedure grew, it was refined. Cutting only the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT) produced comparable results while retaining a more normal toe position.

Today the procedure has evolved further.

Instead of simply cutting the superficial digital flexor tendon, a short section is removed at the metacarpus or metatarsus — just above the foot. Technically, this makes the procedure a superficial digital flexor tendonectomy.

Why the change?

In a small number of dogs successfully treated by the earlier procedure, the tendon subsequently reconnected and the corn eventually returned. Removing a short section of tendon is intended to reduce the likelihood of that reconnection.

The corn itself does not need to be surgically removed. Once pressure is relieved from the pad, it gradually grows out.

What does recovery look like?

Recovery from SDF tendonectomy is generally rapid.

The post-operative dressing is usually removed after 24 hours, followed by around 10 days of controlled lead exercise before returning to normal activity.

Significant improvement in lameness is commonly reported within the first week.

Over the following weeks, the corn gradually grows out as the pad returns towards normal. By around eight weeks, the majority of treated corns in the reported study had grown out, leaving a normal, softer pad with little or no remaining lameness.

Perhaps more importantly, owners consistently reported something that can't be measured simply by looking at a paw:

Their dogs were happier and wanted to exercise again.

What do the results tell us?

The completed study reported on 91 dogs with 149 corns.

The dogs included 70 Greyhounds, 17 Whippets and four Lurchers.

At eight weeks following surgery, 97% of dogs had either slight or no lameness.

Thirty dogs were followed for 12 months. Of those, 23 had no lameness, six had slight lameness and one had moderate lameness.

All of the corns had grown out.

Importantly, analysis of later clinical experience has not found evidence that unloading the treated pad increases the risk of another corn developing elsewhere on the same foot.

Some dogs simply appear predisposed to developing multiple corns.

What if my dog has several corns?

More than one affected toe can be treated during the same surgical session.

In fact, dogs have undergone tendonectomies on multiple feet during one procedure without adverse effects attributable to treating several toes at once.

The suitability of any procedure will, of course, depend on the individual dog and should be assessed by a veterinarian experienced with Greyhound and sighthound feet.

What if another toe has already been amputated?

This is another area where the newer superficial procedure has an advantage.

The original full flexor tenotomy relied more heavily on adjacent toes for support, which could make it unsuitable where a neighbouring digit was missing.

Superficial digital flexor tendonectomy can still be an option in these cases.

Again, this requires individual veterinary assessment.

What about boots?

Boots haven't suddenly become irrelevant because surgical treatment has improved.

Far from it.

For a Greyhound living with a painful corn, reducing direct impact and pressure from hard surfaces can make everyday walking considerably more comfortable.

Some dogs are managed conservatively rather than surgically. Others may need protection while awaiting veterinary treatment or during recovery. And Greyhounds prone to foot problems can benefit from ongoing protection against hard, rough or gritty surfaces.

The important thing is to remember what footwear is doing.

A boot can protect and cushion the foot. It doesn't remove the underlying mechanical cause of a corn.

Persistent lameness therefore deserves proper veterinary investigation rather than simply putting a boot over it.

Research continues

The story isn't finished.

Michael Guilliard is collaborating with Pippa Williams and Professor Eithne Comerford at the University of Liverpool on a prospective clinical study looking at dogs before and after superficial digital flexor tendonectomy.

The study is assessing reduction in pain at 12 weeks and 12 months, together with changes in the dog's overall quality of life and wellbeing.

Recruitment has now closed after reaching the required number of participants. Follow-up data is continuing to be collected before analysis and submission for peer-reviewed publication.

It's quite a progression from an experimental procedure involving a relatively small number of dogs only a few years ago.

For Greyhounds suffering from this remarkably small but remarkably painful problem, that's very welcome progress.

A note from Hunnyboots

We've been following the development of flexor tenotomy since its earliest days — including when our own Hunny underwent the procedure here in Melbourne.

This page was originally published in 2020, when the procedure was new and the available clinical evidence was preliminary.

A lot has happened since then.

We've updated this article to reflect the development of superficial digital flexor tendonectomy and the considerably greater body of clinical experience now available.

As always, information here is intended to help Greyhound owners better understand foot health. Diagnosis and treatment of a suspected corn should be discussed with your veterinarian.

Sources and further reading

Michael Guilliard & Richard Doughty, Superficial digital flexor tendonectomy for the treatment of corns in sighthounds, Veterinary Dermatology, 2022; 33(6):581–586. DOI: 10.1111/vde.13117.

Michael Guilliard, Corns: An Update, January 2026.

University of Liverpool — ongoing research into superficial digital flexor tendonectomy for corn treatment in Greyhounds.