Sores on Dog’s Paw Pads

by Duncan W.
(Lismore, NSW, Australia)

Ecko started developing these lesions on the edges of his paw pads about a week ago and they seem to be spreading. He now has them on every paw. The skin looks kind of raw and to begin with was a bit pussy.

First we made up a tea from fresh tumeric and washed them with that. It cleared up the puss but did not prevent the condition from spreading.

We also used medical honey wrapped in comfrey leaves which we kept on with a sock while we slept… hard to keep a sock on him during the day as we live outdoors and he is usually a very active dog.

Then we tried some peroxide of hydrogen, but stopped after one application because we thought it might make his paws more raw.

Then we crushed up some cloves of garlic and applied that overnight, but it still seems to be spreading.

On the last picture you can see how it has spread to the back of his hind leg paw pad.

Last night we resorted to putting some betadine ointment on it.

We are on the verge of taking him to the vet, at least to get a diagnosis of the condition because at the moment we don’t know what else to try as we don’t know what it is, but suspect it could be fungal.

Summer has just come on here in Australia… it’s been very hot and humid so we go down to the creek often. We think it’s possible that he may have picked something up in the mud around there.

Our other dog hasn’t shown any of the same symptoms, fingers crossed he won’t.

We feed our dogs mainly raw food, which consists of chicken and beef from the butcher, mixed with carrots, apples and whatever other veggies need using up. They do sometimes get rice, bread and occasionally pies (surplus from the soup kitchen). We often add an egg, garlic, olive oil and apple cider vinegar to their food, but not all the time.

Lately we tried giving them herbs to worm them, worm wood, black walnut, chili powder, clove powder and have tried giving them food grade diatomaceous earth, but in the end resorted to dosing them with Drontal all-wormer, and Comfortis for their fleas. We did this almost two weeks ago.