Badly peeling pews help

[canuckster]

Hello again,

Looking for some help. We adopted our pup about seven months ago. He was a rescue dog who appears to be kept inside without much walking/exercise. However, we are pretty active family now take him on long hikes, fishing, swimming, etc. At first it seemed like his paws were just not used to outside terrain and were soft. Overtime everything seemed to normalize and he loves outdoors. Yesterday I noticed a slight limp and decided to check his dog feet. It appears his paws are peeling to the point where old skin came off with new growing right under old.

https://imgur.com/a/vFIKFkr

He licks it and rips the remaining skit off where sometimes it slightly bleeds. It almost appears like a chemical burn like when I work on the car and my skins starts to peels off. I did some research and some suggest it might be food allergy, seasonal allergy, fungus, stress, etc. but what is it really? How can I help him? The food has not changed (he eats dry gluten free) and everything that we eat and always was fine. We live in Arizona where it’s starting to get hot. We did change our floor cleaning solution and other day had to leave him home alone overnight (under neighbors supervision). He did not eat or drink while we were gone (stress). Could this be seasonal or something that we should be concerned with? Overall he looks and acts healthy. Thank you.

 

[greenbird]

@canuckster It's not likely serious but get him to a vet.

 

[chrissyboy]

@canuckster He may also just be exercising more on more hard surfaces, and its getting to his paw pads? He may have just irritated it this once? If its irritated from an accident, the dog will lick/chew at it for the time being (kind of like how a dog wears a cone while they heal from surgery--they want to lick wounds until wounds are not wounds anymore, then we can take the cone off). When my dog tears her paw pad at daycare sometimes, she's like this. We just put a bootie on it until its healed.

If this was something regular, it definitely seems like an allergy that he's regularly interacting with (such as food allergy, grass allergy, detergent that you clean his bed with allergy, floor cleaner allergy...etc) but Id also second the vet to rule out fungus as you've noted. Seasonal allergies are also possible, my dog has them.

As far as heat, id try walking outside where he walks with your bare feet. If its too hot for your feet, its too hot for the dog, but I think you'd likely notice your dogs discomfort with hot ground.

 

[mikepetz]

@canuckster My dog has a similar thing happen occasionally. Our vet said it was allergies and we tried a few different over the counter meds until we found one that works. Head to the vet to confirm it's not anything serious anyway.

 

[degb]

@canuckster I would suggest a vet visit, but it is mostly likely allergy related sometimes they react to grass even. I'd try putting some coconut oil on the pads of his feet just to see if it helps relive some itching

 

[canuckster]

Thank you everyone for your input. We decided to wait to see if it get better or worse while not taking him for walks. He seems to get better and is heeling well.