If your dog has dew claws on their feet, these REALLY help in preventing hotspots in Ruffwear's line of boots. I've found them to be useful on all feet, dew claw or not, to keep their boots on better in general, but they really help with those darn hotspots. Pro tip: if your dog wears two separate sizes of shoes and the shoes themselves don't have the sizing on the bottoms (looking at you, Grip Trex), keep the sock in the shoe itself so you can easily distinguish between front and back paws. (Even easier is to buy two separate colors for the two separate sizes).