What Helped Us Deal With Biscuit's Itchy Paws

Biscuit started licking her paws at night. Not a quick lick and done. A steady, wet, chewing sort of lick I could hear from the hallway at eleven, then again around two, then again before the sun came up. If you have a dog with itchy paws, you know that sound. It gets into your sleep.

She is a 6-year-old blue-nose American pit bull terrier, 58 pounds, adopted from an Albuquerque shelter four years ago. In our dry New Mexico air, her skin and her paws have always been the tender spot.

I tried the obvious things first. Washed her bedding every week instead of every other week. Wiped her paws after every walk with a damp cloth. Switched her food twice. None of it made a real dent. I also had her vet look at it, and he checked between her toes and found no infection and no yeast, which was good news and also no answer at all.

That is how I ended up standing in my kitchen with a container of Zesty Paws Dog Allergy Chews in lamb, reading the label twice. My vet had said the word support, and he had also said to ask him before I added anything to her routine. So I asked. He said it was fine to try, one chew a day with breakfast, dose by her weight on the label.

The label lists colostrum, EpiCor Pets fermentate and omega-3s. I am not a veterinarian and I am not going to pretend I can explain what each one does inside a dog. What I can tell you is what changed in my house over about ten months, and what did not change at all.

Around week six the eleven o'clock licking got quiet. Her paws were still pink between the toes. She had just stopped working at them.

Nothing happened the first week. Nothing the second. I want to be honest about that, because I have read reviews where people say the change came overnight, and that was not our house. Somewhere in the fifth or sixth week I realized I was not hearing the eleven o'clock licking anymore. I started paying attention. She still licked, but it was a couple of passes and then she put her head down. Before, she would work at one front paw until I got up and told her to stop.

It has never gone away completely. Her paws are still pink between the toes. After a windy day, when the dust is up, she still scratches more than I would like. The Zesty Paws chews did not turn her into a different dog and they are not a cure for anything. They are one part of a routine, and I try to be clear about that when people at the dog park ask me.

The rest of the routine matters too, and each piece does its own job. The shampoo gets used on bath day, about every three weeks, lathered and left five minutes and rinsed all the way out. The elevated bed gets her off the warm concrete in the summer. The chews are the daily piece, breakfast, one chew, and that is it.

If your dog is chewing hot spots, or the skin is broken, or there is a smell, put the container down and go to your vet. A soft chew is not a treatment for an infection and I would not want anybody to read this and wait. What I am describing is a dog whose vet had already checked her and found nothing to treat.

One practical thing. The chews are soft, and Biscuit is a heavy chewer, so she does not get to take one out of my hand and walk off with it. I break it over her kibble and she eats it with breakfast. That is a me thing, not a label thing. The lamb flavor matters more than you would think, too. Biscuit is food motivated, which is a polite way of saying she will eat anything, but I have heard enough from neighbors about chews their dogs turn their noses up at. These she takes off the kibble without a fuss, which means I am not fighting her at seven in the morning to get one into her.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you to write down what your dog actually does before you buy anything. Not she seems itchy. Which paw. What time of day. Whether it is worse after a walk or after she has been lying on the couch. I did that for two weeks with a notebook on the counter, and it is the only reason I can tell you the change came around week six and not week one. Memory is a liar about this sort of thing.

I would also tell you what I told my neighbor. This is one product doing one job. It did not replace the shampoo, it did not fix the dry air, and it is not a substitute for a vet who has actually looked between your dog's toes. If your dog is a strong pit bull with a stubborn licking habit and your vet has cleared the obvious problems, a daily chew is a reasonable thing to try for six or eight weeks before you decide. That is how long I gave it, and that is why I am still buying the Zesty Paws lamb chews.