My dog, Jasper, was originally a upstate NY dog. He’s a boy-tick terrier mix.

He was my late father’s dog and spent a lot of time alone during the day. He use to chew and lick his paws when he lived with dad, but not to the point of bleeding.

He’s been living with us since Sept- 2021.

He still licked and nibbled his paw(s) mostly just the left rear, but when we moved two months ago it went into over-drive.

He licked his legs until they were raw and chewed, I mean chewed that back paw until it was so swollen and bloody he couldn’t walk on it. He constantly licks himself and us. He straight up loves him some licking.

I’ve had a cone on him for ten days and have put dinovite on his meals. We’ve also been giving him allergy medicine and CBD twice a day.

I can’t stand seeing him in the cone and I took it off yesterday. He went after himself with a vengeance. I saw him chewing on his own skin. He also went to town on that paw again.

My wife, who’s been so supportive about Jasper joining our family, was bitten this morning when she tried applying some soothing medical spray to his paw. (Cone was off)

My take is that it’s anxiety related and some kind of addiction. I’m also open that he could have legit itching issues.

With the escalation of biting my wife I am looking for solutions hard.

Thank you in advance for reading all this.

Probably a habit disturbance. I would see your vet to rule out other causes. You need a proper diagnosis to treat him effectively.

A vet check to rule out other issues. Then try a different, quality dog food with different ingredients.
One of our dogs licks the fur off his chest and a change like this cured it.

I went through this with one of our dogs. Working with the vet and trying many things, the conclusion was 'bad allergies' and possibly diet leading to dry skin. I started adding Ultra oil to the dog's morning food and that seemed to mostly stop it. The vet said if started again to give the dog Benadryl antihistamine as well. Between those two things, all got better.

It did take using a cone at first since the dog removed every bandage I tried. A fabric based cone from Amazon worked much better than the hard plastic cone from the vet.

Does he have rear dewclaws?

Cytopoint.

Take your pup to a vet allergy specialist. Our man Charlie Brown had identical issues. It was discovered he was allergic to most grasses and flowers. He was placed on a treatment of Fluconazole, Pentoxifylline, and Apoquel. He also needed regular cleaning with Chlorhexidine shampoo.

After all that stuff, his skin was perfect with no issues.

In our dog's case, it was a food allergy. Problem stopped when we started using the "Veterinary Diet" (can't remember the brand right now, and the dog is no longer with us).

The food was only sold with a prescription and it was cheaper to buy it from the vet than it was at PetSmart.

Our little guy is on 8mg Apoluel 1 x day.

Thanks everyone, Jasper has a vet appointment next Wednesday.

I’m going to start making his food myself today. There’s recipes out there for allergies.

The idea of the grass/vegetation being an allergenic is intriguing as well.

At our new house he spends a lot of time on the patio and likes to lay in the grass/sun.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Does he have rear dewclaws?

No sir, he doesn’t.

quote:

Originally posted by matte:
Cytopoint.

I’ll be sure to ask the vet about this.

His antics this morning cancelled pool boy appreciation time.

Not cool Jasper, not cool bro.

It sounds dumb but Dinovite was an absolute game changer for Molly.
We got her an she was terrible always itching, scratching, chewing, licking, her paws, chin, and other places were constantly bloody, she got hot spots something terrible.

I tried steroids, expensive vet meds, and diets only got a little relief.

But after years of hearing those stupid Dinovite ads on Talk radio and their money back guarantee I was all out of options. So I figured it was worth a shot.

Granted every dog is different but Dinovite, doggy Benadryl (AM & PM), and a fish oil pill (AM & PM) teamed with Inukshuk food the problems are almost gone.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/5820050294

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
It sounds dumb but Dinovite was an absolute game changer for Molly.
We got her an she was terrible always itching, scratching, chewing, licking, her paws, chin, and other places were constantly bloody, she got hot spots something terrible.

I tried steroids, expensive vet meds, and diets only got a little relief.

But after years of hearing those stupid Dinovite ads on Talk radio and their money back guarantee I was all out of options. So I figured it was worth a shot.

Granted every dog is different but Dinovite, doggy Benadryl (AM & PM), and a fish oil pill (AM & PM) teamed with Inukshuk food the problems are almost gone.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/5820050294

Our dog's been on Dinovite for 3 weeks after reading the original Sigforum post and is almost totally cured.

quote:

Originally posted by Underdog:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Does he have rear dewclaws?

No sir, he doesn’t.

Good, good. One of my customer's pup had them and he nearly chewed them off. Poor thing was still loopy from the vet when I got there. HAHA, he would give a half-woof and sway a little and just look at me with big glassy eyes. It was like he was trying to decide if he barked out loud or if it was all in his head.

In the hopes that our resident vet will pop in and share his expertise, I’m going to throw out the idea of apoquel. Works for my current boy dog - he has a fall allergy to something in the yard, but I also had a hound that licked like yours and switching her to a different food was the trick for her, after many tests and drugs, turns out she was allergic to the food (she was on Solid Gold, go figure)… Switched her to a Nutro product, something “balance”… and we never looked back. Good luck to you.

On my Bloodhounds i would give them 1-2 Benadryl tabs a day when they would get to really itching.
I finally went grain free quality dry dog food and that has all but stoped the seasonal itching for them.

My daughters beagle who lives about a 1/2 mile from me had to finally take go to the vet and was on one or two prescribed meds which helped him a lot. He was on those about the last two years of his life.

Your vet should be able to get it some help. I know the grain free foods have reports of causing issues for some but i have not seen any issues with mine. Kinda cracks me up though we were practically shammed into putting ours on grain free. It was a year or two before we finally caved into feeding grain free. It was recommended by both vets i have used for the last 18 years and they never tell me not to feed it whenever i am asked a her vet visits.

I would try the food route first. The vet will be able to tell you if there is an infection or other issue that needs any sort of drug but I’d stay away from those otherwise as a long term solution.
We feed our dogs Tractor Supply 4 Health-Salmon & Potato kibbles and that cured our problem dog. Yours may need a different flavor but that’s a good place to start.

A dog owner I know spent lots of time and money visiting veterinarians for his dog that had the same problem. After he visited a Doggie Dermatologist, the dog was permanently cured in one visit. Expensive yes. Effective yes. Cheaper than visiting a bunch of general animal doctors who all issue the same standard treatment and drugs for skin conditions they don't actually have a bona fide handle on, my guess would be yes. So stop wasting your money on regular vet docs and take him to an animal specialist doctor.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Our little guy is on 8mg Apoluel 1 x day.

Apoquel does work very well.