Solving Paw Chewing
Paw Redness Or Inflammation
02 Feb 2018
Category:- Understanding Canine Flow
Reasons your dog will chew, lick, or nibble at their paws can very often be diet and food based, but not always.
There are many things you can put onto the paws to help soothe and heal any soreness. One of the best is Colloidal Silver.
Tip! Avoid Hibiscrub as this kills the beneficial bacteria that live on your dog’s skin, upsetting the balance of the skin and making it harder for it to regenerate again and heal.
These are all major contributing factors to paw issues:
Gut Bacteria Imbalance or Leaky Gut Issues
Allergies stem from gut bacteria imbalances and leaky gut issues! Yes, it could be an allergy but even if you find out what the offending food item is, you still need to heal the gut lining. Simply avoiding that item is not the whole answer for your dog, as the reason behind the allergy occurring is still inside your dog. Further allergies can easily occur, as well as continuing development of immune issues inside your dog.
You have to heal the inside first!
The key to this is to feed REAL food – it can be cooked or raw but it’s got to be real, actual meat bone content plus suitable plant material. Real food still has all the things in it that a living creature needs. Whereas, processed food can never have these things and so is never actually 'Complete'. The word Complete is a labeling term, not a statement of usefulness for dogs. No animal on this planet has evolved to benefit from processed food!
Training, 'Boredom' and Emotional Blocks
Skin is the biggest elimination organ of the body and the dogs front paws are linked with their emotional expression. Skin not only tries to eliminate toxins but excess emotions too. Sometimes the actual skin could be great, but limitations to a dog's ability to express itself in other ways can lead to a build up of emotional charge in their energy system. So, the paw chewing could be an emotional issue, a block in the dog’s emotional flow.
Solving this would mean including more doggie-type activities such as free running, digging, meeting other dogs to play, and chewing other things. As well as considering: are there restrictions on your dog in terms of freedom? Are the above activities restricted? Or perhaps another restriction or consistent command to follow is contributing to the dogs feeling of not being able to emotionally flow and do the things that come naturally to them.
Our Canine Flow behaviour and training method is based around the idea of encouraging a dog to express Emotional Energy rather than accumulate it. We have many ways to ensure your dog is fully in the Flow and emotionally content as much as is possible in this busy world.
Issues Further Up the Leg
Sometimes paw issues can actually be stemming from issues further up the leg, such as shoulder tightness, consistent leash pulling or even trauma and previous injury.
Not Connecting with Earth
Lastly, it can be that your dog is not able to access the bare earth often enough. All animals need to be able to 'ground' or 'earth' themselves by having their paws on the conductive surface of planet Earth. The earth has certain measurable electrical currents that benefit all creatures (including us too). If your dog is mostly or only walked on tarmac, plastic grass and roads, simply making sure your dog gets to the bare earth, or even better the beach, will have an influence on paw chewing or redness issues.
Earthing now has huge amount of research behind it in terms of reducing inflammation. So even if you know your dog does reach the earth regularly, it could still be beneficial to take them to the beach for the day to help them gain extra earth electrons and help to heal the redness or inflammation while you wait for the other reasons to be solved or looked into.
Like most canine issues, there is often more going on than we presume. And like most dog issues, they can normally be solved with simple, natural activities and understanding.
With gratitude for reading,
Caroline
If you have benefited from this article, you will love my book "Imperfectly Natural Canine"!
The book is the next in BBC’s Janey Lee Grace’s Imperfectly Natural series. Packed with information on solving ailments, issues and understanding diet, nutrition and even vaccination choices. It is your go-to book for a new and natural ways to care for and love your dog.