We have a two year old westie who is continuously licking the bottom of his paws, especially at night time when we want to go to sleep. Its begining to drive us/ME mad, as all you can hear at night is, lick, lick, lick.  Should we take him down the vets or is this just a habit he has picked up.

ps - his paws are begining to turn PINK! :-/

Westies cn be prone to food allergies, and this can trigger irritation in the feet - which can be soothed by licking.

Thanks digger, best go over what we feed him then and see if we can locate the problem.

It is also harvest mite time, something that gave my terrier an awful lot of grief to the feet and nose unless treated regularly in the summer months, with Nuvan Top in her case, although I believe Frontline does just as well.

Thats interesting, i think we shall take him down the vets instead of seconding guessing.

Thanks for the comments thou. - Hopefully we can have a decent nights sleep very soon.

First thing is be careful about any recommendation of steriod use. It seems to be administered at the drop of hat.

The weather has been very wet recently it could be that the dogs feet has been exceptionally wet.  It seems to be more common during the wet weather. Washed regularly with hibi scrub or maleseb, dried properly including between the pads can help. Ensure the pads are free from anything and trim the hair and most importantly the nails. Longs nails for sure make dogs chew their feet.

>First thing is be careful about any recommendation of steroid use. It seems to be administered at the drop of hat

Couldn't agree more. It seems to be the elixir of life for a whole host of problems that are often easily remedied without the use of them.

Good paw maintainance is essential as Blue has outlined. I have a very hairy breed and know from experience that when their claws need trimming they are always the first to alert me :)

We have a staffy whos licking turned out to be food related