Excessive paw licking

[GinaB]

Beastie was always quite bad for licking her paws, but in the last week it has gotten really bad, her feet are soaking wet! Her diet has not changed recently, neither has the washing up powder we wash her blankets in and we don't spray the garden with anything that might irritate her.

Any ideas?

 

[maddielove]

Pollen maybe? Only thing that could be changing at the minute.

Scruff gets ichypaws too, but I think his are more like chillblains as he gets them bad after walks in the winter!

 

[kirstyhen]

Otto does this, he isn't as bad as he used to be, since we put him on hypoallergenic food, but it drives me up the wall!!

I spoke to the Vet and she said to try rinsing his paws of in fresh water after each walk.

 

[lily1]

could be a grass seed

 

[k9h]

Don't know as my old girl has made her's red raw at the moment with licking them & lamed herself.
Am going to have to put her in boots! That should be fun!

I am pretty certain it is my dad feeding her crap & titbits/left overs that over a period of time try to come out through the paws as it has built up/backlogged in the body & is the way the body tries to express things. Also her ears have gone mucky with it too (another sign of crap in the body or it not digesting correctly) so had to clean them out the other night.

 

[Kate260881]

I heard that excessive licking (not necessarily paws but licking in general) was often a sign of stress. Is there anything that's happened lately that could be stressing her out maybe?

 

[Sprout]

Could be a number of things, anxiety, irritation, pain, boredom etc.

I hope you are able to find the source of the problem before the licking causes its own problems - good luck!

 

[Nicki85]

Not sure how old your dog is, but my elderly retriever licks her paws as its the only part she can reach these days... Bless her. So echo discomfort, pain?

Our Springer needed steroid cream when she licked her leg raw.... Never understood why but she does get allergies this time of year. Does Pireton help? I sometimes give the Springer 1/4 tab if she has very runny eyes.

 

[heidi123]

My lab had this when he was a pup! Took us a while to find out what was causing it and we found out that if he went into a field with stingy nettles or anything of the same saught he used to get quite bad irritation on his pads. He still gets it now if he runs through them!!

Has yours come into any contact with anything like that? xx

 

[sloulou]

poor beastie - hope you find out what it is!

 

[GinaB]

Beastie dog is the most chilled out dog there is and I don't think anything has happened to cause her undue stress. Except maybe smelling my sisters OHs feet last night

Ho-hum I'll keep a close eye thank you for all your suggestions, hopefully will get to the bottom of it!

And Widget, good to see you back

There is a poster called Widget_99 and I keep getting really confused and expecting to see Loki in the sig!

 

[sloulou]

Yes - I saw that poster's name a while ago! I have just been busy - am only popping on here sometimes... mainly to talk dogs!

 

[parsley]

Our dog started doing this - took him to the vet and he had a fungal infection. The vet gave us Malaseb to wash him in and it seems to have cleared up.

 

[suzysparkle]

In huskies, this is often a sign of zinc deficiency.