I have a six month old staffie who got an ear infection when he was about 4 months old. We went to the vets and they couldn't put it down to anything in particular so he gave us soluran and this cleared them up. We also changed his food from pedigree to James Wellbeloved as we thought it may be something to do with the amount of wheat, maize, etc. Now his paws are all red between his toes and if we don't notice him chewing them he carries on until they bleed. He doesn't constantly chew them but he has also chewed his arm and lost some hair, will this grow back? We don't use shake n vac and can't understand what is wrong. His ears are perfect now, just a little red where they crease and we have got a puppy check at the vets shortly but I just wondered if anyone has had a similar problem. Thankyou for helping.   

Hi Lynsey Sorry to here about your staff, Ive had a similar problem with one of mine and hers was caused by change of diet. It could be a number of things causing his problem i would put him back on his old food as it seems to me that the toe licking thing seems to have started from when you changed his food. i wouldnt have thought his food would have caused him to have an ear infection sometimes staffies are prone to them. I always make sure my staffs ears are clean and free from wax. Try him back on his old food and see how it goes if hes no better take him back to the vet All the best from gwen Hasweth staffs

Thankyou gwennie for replying, i'm a bit reluctant to give him pedigree again as most people slate it due to it's high starch and gluten content. The vet said that he would expect other symptons such as a red rash on his belly if it was to do with his food and believed that it was probably due to the wet weather. I now make sure that i dry his paws thoroughly when he comes in and hope he leaves them alone.

Allergies to food can lead to itchy feet, rear end and ears; not necessarily in that order or altogether. You don't say which variety you feed your dog on but the junior performance varieties contain the following. 

INGREDIENTS: Rice, lamb meat meal, ground whole barley, potato protein, fresh lamb, lamb fat, whole linseed, lamb gravy, sugar beet pulp, alfalfa, natural seaweed, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, D,L-methionine, lysine hydrochloride, threonine, zinc methionate.

Turkey

INGREDIENTS: Rice, turkey meat meal, oats, potato protein, turkey gravy, whole linseed, turkey fat, alfalfa, natural seaweed, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, D,L-methionine, lysine hydrochloride, threonine, zinc methionate.

Duck

INGREDIENTS: Rice, duck meat meal, organic oats, duck gravy, whole linseed, duck fat, alfalfa, natural seaweed, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, D,L-methione, lysine hydrochloride, threonine, zinc methionate.

I believe their advertising may be misleading as it leads you to assume when you see their adverts that their food contains ONLY meat and rice when as you can see it contains a whole lot more!  Your dog may be allergic/intolerant to one or more of the ingredients underneath and unless you have a blood test sent away to YORKTEST specifically for allergy testing you will not KNOW. 

Burns or Naturdiet may suit your dog as it does have ONLY meat, rice and veggies (apart from one variety of Burns which also contains SBP.

Apart from meat protein the most likely causes of allergy are barley, potato and linseed and oats.  I had a dog that was allergic to both potato and oats. 

HTH

I am giving him puppy JWB (lamb & rice) but he is nearly six months old and was going to move up to the junior performance. I will ask the vet to do a blood test although when we asked before he was more intent on making us do a food test for five-six weeks. I have tried him on the nature diet but he turns his nose up and wont touch it, it seems to me that there is something in every type of dog food which could cause an allergic reaction. Pedigree has wheat and maize as does eukanuba and iams, jwb has potato and linseed. All very confusing but thankyou for your help.