Paw and pad care through the seasons: what dogs' feet actually need

A dog's paws are tougher than they look and need less fussing than the internet suggests, but they aren't maintenance-free, and the things that go wrong with them are seasonal and largely preventable.

The pads are built to take abrasion, the claws wear on hard ground, and most feet do fine on a normal life of walks. The trouble starts at the edges of the year — the frozen, salted pavement of winter and the baking tarmac of summer — and with the small foreign objects that work their way in unnoticed.

What a healthy foot looks like, and the weekly check

Learn the normal so you notice the abnormal.

A healthy pad is supple rather than cracked or rock-hard, the skin between the toes is clean and dry, the claws are worn but not split, and the dog bears weight evenly without licking at one foot. Once a week, and after every rough or wet walk, run a hand over each foot: spread the toes and look between them, press the pads for tenderness, and check the claws and dewclaws. A dog that suddenly licks or chews one paw is telling you something is in there or wrong with it.

Make it a handling exercise rather than an inspection, because a dog that objects to having its feet held is a dog whose feet you'll never check properly. Feet are the part most dogs are touchiest about, so pay for it — hold a paw for a second, treat, release — and you'll have an animal you can examine in the dark on a wet night, which is exactly when you'll need to.

Nails are part of foot health, not just tidiness: a claw left too long changes how the foot meets the ground, splays the toes and can curl into the pad. If you can hear clicking on a hard floor or see the nails touching the ground when the dog stands, they're too long. Keeping them short is its own small skill — see trimming a dog's nails — and the single most useful thing you can do for the structure of the foot.

The hair between the pads counts too. Left long it mats, collects grit and ice, and slides on hard floors, so a trim flush with the pads with blunt-ended scissors every few weeks is worth the trouble — particularly for an older dog, for whom losing grip on laminate is a genuine problem rather than a comic one.

Winter: salt, ice and cracked pads

Winter is the hardest season on feet, and most of the damage is chemical rather than cold.

The de-icing salt and grit spread on pavements is an irritant that stings broken skin, dries the pads, and makes a dog sick if it licks it off, so wipe or rinse the feet after every winter walk and dry between the toes. Ice balls that form in the fur between the pads of hairy-footed dogs are painful and worth trimming the fur back to prevent. The rest of the cold-weather picture — how long to be out, when it's too cold at all — sits with keeping a pet safe in cold weather.

Cracked, dry pads are the winter complaint owners notice, and a dog-specific pad balm helps a genuinely dry pad — but resist treating a pad you haven't looked at, because a deep crack, a cut or a limp is a vet problem, not a moisturiser problem. Boots solve the salt and ice entirely for dogs that will tolerate them, which is a minority; introduce them slowly and indoors, and accept that some dogs simply won't walk in them.

Keep a shallow tub of lukewarm water and an old towel by the door through the salted months. Standing the dog in it for a few seconds and drying between the toes takes less time than wiping four feet with a cloth and removes far more, and it means the salt never reaches the tongue in the first place.

Summer: hot pavement and the burn nobody sees coming

Summer's danger is heat conducted straight into the pads from tarmac and paving that has sat in the sun.

Dark surfaces get far hotter than the air, hot enough to blister a pad in under a minute, and the injury doesn't show until later. The test is simple and worth doing: press the back of your hand flat to the ground for seven seconds, and if you can't hold it there, it's too hot for the dog. Walk on grass, walk early or late when the ground has cooled, and on a hot day the honest answer may be a shorter walk or none.

A pad burn looks like darkened, peeling or blistered skin, and a dog with one will limp and lick. It's painful and can get infected, so keep the foot clean, stop the walks that caused it, and get a vet to look at anything beyond the mildest case. Summer also brings the risk of a dog cooking overall, not just its feet, so the hot-ground rule sits alongside the wider warning about heat and dogs.

Remember that the ground stays hot long after the air cools, which is why an eight o'clock evening walk in a heatwave can still burn. Sand on a beach and the metal of a car boot floor are both worse than pavement, and a dog that has been carried out of an air-conditioned car onto black tarmac gets no warning at all.

Grass seeds, cuts and the limp that means a vet

In the drier months, grass seeds are the classic hidden injury.

A barbed seed lodges between the toes, burrows through the skin and drives up the leg, causing a sudden painful swelling and relentless licking, and it needs a vet to remove before it travels. Check between the toes after every walk in long dry grass. Cuts from glass and sharp stone are common too, and a pad bleeds impressively; clean a minor one and watch it, but a deep cut, one that won't stop bleeding, or a flap of pad hanging loose all need veterinary attention rather than home care.

Pad wounds heal slowly and badly compared with skin elsewhere, because the dog walks on them all day and the pad doesn't stitch well. That's worth knowing before you decide something is minor: a cut that keeps reopening every time the dog goes out needs proper dressing and rest, not another week of hoping. Ask about a boot or a dressing cover for walks, keep it dry, and expect the vet to say no running for longer than seems fair.

The rule that ties it all together is simple: a healthy dog uses all four feet evenly and doesn't obsess over one. A limp that lasts more than a short while, a foot the dog won't put down, a swelling, a bad smell, or licking that has become constant are all reasons to look closely and, if you don't find and fix an obvious cause, to see a vet. Feet are easy to ignore because they mostly cope — right up until the moment they need you to notice.

When the licking isn't an injury at all

There's a version of sore feet that has nothing to do with the ground, and it's one of the commonest things a vet sees.

A dog that licks both front paws, most evenings, until the hair between the toes stains rust-coloured, usually has an allergy, not a splinter. The staining is from saliva, the skin underneath goes pink and yeasty, and the same dog often has grumbling ears and an itchy belly — one problem showing up in several places rather than four separate ones.

Seasonal versions point at pollen and go quiet in winter; year-round versions point at house dust mites or, less often, food. Either way, a wipe and a balm won't touch it, and the answer is a vet's opinion on the whole dog instead of another look at the paw. Rinsing the feet after walks genuinely helps a pollen-sensitive dog, which is a useful thing to try while you wait for the appointment.

Boredom and anxiety produce a similar picture in a minority of dogs, and pain in a joint higher up occasionally does too — a dog will lick the foot below an aching wrist. Those are worth mentioning instead of assuming, because they change the treatment entirely.