How to stop dog chewing her paws.

LittleTinker

Francophile wrote: »

Yes Little Tinker, everyone I know with a small dog says the same but they all seem to have different ideas as to why they are doing it. I'll take her to the vet tonight and see what he says. Will let you know how I get on.

Best idea to go to the Vet

At least you can get treatment if its something itchy

Hope you get on ok

TangledMemories_2

One of our Newfoundlands does the same. He's forever chewing his "thumb". Just sometimes sits there with it in his mouth. Always the right paw.

It isn't red or anything like that...any ideas?

Francophile

Well took her to the vet. He reckons she's being over zealous with the preening as there's no broken skin or anything. He's given her a cousre a anti histimines just in case it's an allergy. I'll see how it goes.

pboae

If the vet is happy there is nothing wrong, there are a couple of things you can use to try and discourage it. (My dog has terrible problems with his feet, and this is what we use when he has a flare up). Aloe vera gel (which you can get from health food places), to sooth and cool, and then you can buy antibacterial powder from big pet stores and sprinkle that on liberally. It's like very fine medicated talc. I am pretty sure it is useless as an antibacterial, but it stops my dog biting. Judging by his face when he tries it either tastes foul or is too sticky and claggy for him to carry on biting. Other than that just distract when she starts up so she doesn't keep making it worse.

Symbeaux1

If I walk our little Jack Russell on grass, I have to wash her feet when we get back or she'd chew 'em right off ! now we stick to the beach. Maybe it's the little ones who do it the most. Bless... they are cute though!

Francophile

Symbeaux1 wrote: »

If I walk our little Jack Russell on grass, I have to wash her feet when we get back or she'd chew 'em right off ! now we stick to the beach. Maybe it's the little ones who do it the most. Bless... they are cute though!

A friends says her does gets itchy feet from walking on grass too. This seems to be the problem, everyone comes up with a different reason for it. You're right about them being cute. Ours is only a mongrel but she's small and perfectly formed. we just love her to bits.

Buddy_Banana

what food are you feeding her? is she chewing when she is anxious - stressed dogs can chew their legs a lot (it relieves anxiety) and also food allergies are very common for this problem...
try a food that contains no beef, pork, wheat, colourings, additives and preservatives

Lynxette

We had a Westie who did the same - We were told by vet that she did it because we were walking her on the wrong surfaces - Apparently the breed, and other small breeds who were designed for the same types of jobs (working across the fields flushing out game) had paws adapted to spreading across the land, rather than being on hard concrete surfaces. Because they didn't get this spread on the concrete (ie, each paw pad touched a slightly different level of earth), they developed blistered and sores between the pads of their paws, which irritated them.

Does that even make sense? o-o;

Neilwudbeguru

We have westie he had terrible problems chewing paws and also ended up losing fur on abdomen. Went to vets who gave him steriods etc, which were costly.

The simple answer was to change his diet. We now feed him Jameswellebloved plus a small amount of tuna flakes just to moist it up a little and his problem dispapperaed within days...weeks later all his fur grew back and although he has chewed his paws very occasionally in teh 4 years since he has never had any soreness.

I honestly would recommend this i.e. going for some non additive food. We had ours on top (expensive tinned and foiled) foods, they must have had additives in which caused him an allergy.

Good Luck

dora37

We have had our dog for a about 3 months now. She is 8 and is constantly licking, scratching and gnawing her paws, abdomen and top of legs. As she is a rescue dog we have no history with her so do not know whether this is an ongoing problem or a new one.

We were told by the Vet to keep her solely on her food (James Wellbeloved) and nothing else (no treats :eek:) and to give her Pirtiton (the only human tablet suitable for dogs apparently) for 8 weeks.

We went back to the Vet as it didn't seem to make much difference, we have now been given a special shampoo (£16) to use and some prescribed tablets, as well as sticking to food only and Piriton. The Vet took a sample of skin by scraping and a piece of sellotape and we have to go back in 10 days.

The Vet explained to us that skin problems can be hard to diagnose the cause as there can be many reasons........so we have to persevere!

Our dog is a cross, possibly a Jack Russell.