cairn biting her paws

[Guest posting as: shannonhonan]

Hello all, new to this forum so hi!!

I live in Scotland and have 2 Cairn bitches. The eldest of the 2 (4yrs old), and started with an itch at her rear end. Then she started biting her paws. The vet says this is a flea allergy after he did blood tests and reccommended a fish diet for a food allergy also. The vets have treated her for the fleas and she is still biting her paws and rubbing her rear end on the carpet.

The younger of the cairns in the same house has no symtoms. Any help appreciated.

Kathleen

[janko77]

Our Dudley also has had issues in biting or nibbling on his front legs. The vet told us it was most likely a food allergy, so we have switched him to a lamb-and-rice diet, which has removed most of that behavior. He has other skin irritation issues which we have been working on too.

As far as the itchy rear-end, you may want to check the area around the "exit". Cairns have 2 glands, one on each side of the "exit", that hve been thought to help in elimination. Anyway, these glands, and the area in general, may be compacted, and the area can become irritated, which they'll try and relieve by dragging their rear-end. Dudley had a minor case of this when he was a few months old, and we simply had to clean the area, and make sure there was no infection (which there wasn't). After we did that, he was as good as new.

Good luck!