My 3 yr lab elsa has developed a condition where she is constant biting her paws/legs and licking drawing blood she is constantly wearing a cone.Visited vets got cream tablets etc,no better in fact worse any advice at my wits end.
Has your Vet given you any indication why she is doing this ? There are many reasons why dogs bite at their paws, some being to cope with pain, or stress or an allergy . Did he explain any of these to you ? A common allergy is to food , so maybe very slowly changing her food to a hypoallergenic one could be helpful ? If she isn't getting better than a Vet is really the only person to advise you , so I would say to go back again . Sorry that you have this to cope with .
Have the vets taken bloods or a done a skin scrape at all? Might be worth talking to them about further tests to try and identify the underlying cause of her itchiness, poor girl
Leão did this. Started off with what looked like an insect bite, or an allergy on one paw. Then got hooked on licking the sore. It took ages to heal, no ointment helped. Blood tests showed up nothing. It passed when I began working from home mostly and was able to spend my whole days with him. I guess it was emotional, even though it would have been triggered by the sore/insect bite/allergy at first.
Have you been walking somewhere different of late? Might be something she walks on that causes irritation? Do you wash her paws before coming inside? Just a simple dunk in a bucket to rinse and then dry with a towel might be effective. Or washing paws in a weak solution of iodine (disinfects). If you apply cream, do so before a walk so that it can sink in before she licks it off. It could be anything that’s causing the biting. The vet really needs to do a thorough check, including ruling out spinal injury, which could cause pain and results in dogs chewing paws. My dog has been through paw chewing times. It’s very frustrating! I must confess we never knew exactly what caused it, but since changing his diet, turning our pool into a pond (ie no chlorine, we put plants into the pool to clean the water), and protecting his back from undue stress (he had a slipped disc), he hardly chews his paws now.
If non of the above excellent advice does not solve the itching, maybe ask for a referral to a veterinary dermatologist.
My last Lab had skin problems which started around age two and persisted on and off throughout his life. However I did gradually get better at prevention and control. The first thing is to get this current reaction sorted by going back to your vet. With my dog no creams or lotions worked (even those prescribed by the vet ) - the only thing to do the trick was a short course of steroids ( from the vet.) Over the years I got better at noticing the warning signs and if I started steroids immediately a very low dose for a few days was enough. I know steroids can cause problems but in Rolo’s case there were no side effects and he lived to be well over 14 years of age. The second thing is to try to figure out the cause of the irritation. With my dog I thought it was a wheat sensitivity and after trial and error put him on tinned tuna and brown rice. However I wasn’t very methodical in ruling things out, and I now wonder if it could have been something else. On the tuna and rice he was much better but we did give him occasional meat scraps and I wonder if they accounted for the odd flare-up. These days I would rule things out one at a time. In old age we changed to Symply salmon and potato kibble, because he started to dislike the tuna, and that also seemed ok. In old age (13 onwards) he had to take Metacam for arthritis so couldn’t have steroids. We then started using a vet prescribed bath, Malaseb, which seemed to help. I hope Elsa’s skin irritation settles down.
My previous lab developed allergies at about age 3 and would chew her itchy feet bloody raw. She'd end up infected and we'd be constantly spraying her with anti-itch spray and giving her medicated baths. It was a never-ending battle. Finally took her to an allergy vet and they put her on Atopica. It was a miracle drug for her. No more itching, infections, or foot chewing! Expensive but SO worth it!
