# Biting her own leg/foot



## Sugar.Geisha (Dec 21, 2005)

Roxie seems to have a habit of biting her back left leg and foot, she occasionally does it to the right one but I guess because of the way she sits the left is normally more available. She puts half her leg in her mouth and chews on it. The vet said it could be down to stress but she seems fine aside from this. I tell her "Roxie dont bite your foot" and she stops doing it, so she understands what Im saying but I dont know why she keeps doing it. I have tried distracting her with toys but she keeps going back to it.
Any advice?


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## Ms_P (Apr 25, 2004)

If your vet doesn't seem to think it's a food alergy, I would think an alergy would affect all her feet not just one or two, then think of it as a baby sucking their thumb.
Sandy still does it occasionally, she's 2, she used to get her back feet soaking wet from it :roll: silly girls arn't they?
I didn't try to discourage her or anything, she's just grown out of it.


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## Sugar.Geisha (Dec 21, 2005)

Thanks so much for the reply!
See one of my cats never grew out of suckling, he is nearly a year old and MASSIVE and yet he still suckles on anything he can. I wasnt sure whether it was just her comforting herself like that or if it was something else. I initially thought it was fleas but she is clean, the vet checked.
I feel a lot better knowing thats what it could be.


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## AEROMarley1983 (Sep 12, 2005)

Tito does that too, but when he does it, he's playing. He rolls over on his back and lifts any one of his paws up to his mouth and growls while he nibbles on them. LOL! It's cute!


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## Linariel (Feb 21, 2006)

Sometimes they do it in play. They'll bite anything they can reach. 

If he's doing it when he's not playing or excited, but when he's resting, I would think it's a food allergy.

What are you feeding him?

My baby chewed his feet while we weaned him off Pedigree Puppy. He's on Timberwolf now, and is doing great.


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## I*LOVE*LUCY (Dec 30, 2005)

Both of my dogs do it too and niether of them have dry skin or a food allergy. I always check their paws because of this and so far it hasn't caused any irritation so I do stop them if I see them doing it but I'm no longer concerned about it.


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## Linariel (Feb 21, 2006)

But how do you know they don't have a food allergy? Often the only sign is chewing on the feet.


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## I*LOVE*LUCY (Dec 30, 2005)

Linariel said:


> But how do you know they don't have a food allergy? Often the only sign is chewing on the feet.


The vet said they don't.


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## trixiesmom (Jan 31, 2006)

Trixie does it to, not sure why, but it doesn't seem to harm her so I just let her be. :roll:


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## Linariel (Feb 21, 2006)

> The vet said they don't.


Was a full allergy panel run?

What are they eating?


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## BlueMo0nz (Nov 2, 2004)

usually the way a vet tests for a food allergy is simply to change the dogs food (usually to a fish based one) and to see if over time the feet chewing stops.


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## Linariel (Feb 21, 2006)

Right...I just didn't know if that had been done. Her answer was simply "The vet said they don't". So that could be the vet's opinion, or it could be based on tests. I just wanted to help rule that out. Not trying to nit-pick, just genuinely curious.

I didn't know that a fish based diet was normally used to rule out allergies. Is it because fish is generally well-tolerated?


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