Our retriever has developed two callouses on each front leg at the side. They are grey in colour and a source of irritation to him he keeps licking them and his fur around the area is turning a reddy pink. Our vet advised just to keep them moist with baby oil but this does not seem to be helping, we would be grateful for any advise/information on treatment for him.

Many thanks
The frustrated Andreucetti's (Ireland)

Are these callouses on his elbow joints? It sounds as though they maybe that type of callous. Dogs ... well retrievers, do like baby oil, so will lick themselves where you put it on, which in turn may make the area sore and irritated. As the irritation is there the dog licks and nibbles more, making the area worse. I use vaseline, (bad for carpets, but ok for elbow pressure points). On one of my dogs I must own up I have given up putting anything on them. He sleeps on a nice soft bed & the car has soft bedding in it and still he has these pressure point callouses. Just leaving them dry has been the answer in his case.

if they are pressure callouses: a lot of dogs get them & many of my hounds have them. Unless they actually get sore I leave well alone. On the pink skinned hounds (goes with the liver pigment) I put teatree oil sunblock (for horses) and that soothes things nicely.

When I've had pressure callouses with elderly Labradors I just rub a little Vaseline in. I do it just before feeding so there is something to take their mind off it and I find the skin soon softens and new hair starts to grow.

Regards, John

One of my old bitches used to lick holes in herself (lick granulomas). It seemed somewhat of a coincidence that she stopped licking once she was diagnosed with an under active thyroid.

Untill then we had tried conventional treatment, homoeopathy, acupuncture, bandaging the affected places and nothing worked

Christine

That doesn't surprise me at all Christine. I have an underactive thyroid myself and before it was diagnosed my skin was very dry and itchy, so much so that on occasions I almost tore the skin with scratching it and still got no relief from the itching. Once on the thyroxine this stopped immediately.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

After she was diagnosed (as she did not have the classic symptoms) my vet went on a seminar about this problem. He got back to work, then rang me to explain that every dog that comes into his surgery probably has some symptom of an underactive thyroid as there are now known to be so many different ones !

Christine