Home Remedies for Dog Paw Maintenance

Dog paw maintenance is essential to your dog's health. Using a home remedy to solve any problems will prevent many trips to the veterinarian's office. In severe cases, a trip to the veterinarian's office may be necessary. Maintaining the health of your dog's paw can prevent most injuries from occurring.

  1. Clean the Paws Regularly

    • Because dogs may not like people messing with their paws, start touching and playing with your dog's paws when it's a puppy. Use soap and warm water to clean your dogs paws. Remove loose debris away from the paw. If it's during the winter, clean any ice-melting salt the dog picked up from the sidewalk from its paws. After walking your dog, check its paws regularly for cuts or torn skin. If a dog's paw has embedded debris, clean it good and use a pair of tweezers to remove the debris. If there is an injury such as a cut, clean the cut with peroxide, apply a cloth with pressure to stop the bleeding and treat with an antiobiotic. Clean the cut with peroxide at least twice a day and terat with antibiotic until it's completely healed.

    Keep Nails Trimmed

    • A dog's nails should be trimmed by an eighth of an inch every four to six weeks or more. if necessary. Start this routine when it a puppy so it will be used to it as an adult. If you have a small dog with relatively thin nails, use guillotine-style clippers, Barbara Brown writes in her articel How To Maintain Dow Paw Health. Put the dog's nail in a small circle and clamp down, causing the circle to close and cut off the nail. If you have a bigger dog with thicker nails, use scissor-style clippers. Brown suggests. If you have a patient dog who doesn't mind you touching its nails, you can use a sander to trim its nails. This technique prevents you from cutting too close to the paw, but it takes longer to do.

    Keep Pads Moisturized

    • The pads of a dog's paws take a real beating every day. They have to support its weight while walking and running over different terrains, stopping suddenly and cutting different ways while running. Healthy pads will still be tough and thick, but they shouldn't be dried or cracked. Snow, sidewalk salt and extreme temperature changes can cause the pads to dry and crack. Washing salt and debris off the pads is an important step. If your dog's paw cracks, get a moisturizer made for dogs, the Home Remedies for Dogs website suggests.

    Prevent Injuries

    • There is no way to completely prevent injuries to your dogs paws. If your dog plays outside, remove debris such as broken glass. When taking your dogs for walks, avoid hot asphalt that could cause pain or dry out its paw pads.