# biting when wiping snow off paws



## Kyle071785 (Nov 28, 2013)

ok...
Jax is nearly 18 weeks old and we have some crazy snow here in the Toronto area. His nipping is pretty good aside from one area...
Nearly everytime we come inside and wipe the snow out of his paws, he turns completely nuts and starts biting. I'm talking crazy bites here, wide eyed, snarling, snapping at our hands.

If we give him small treats while wiping his paws he'll be fine...if we don't have treats OR if the paw wiping takes longer than 5 seconds he goes ballistic on us.

At first I thought he may just hate the drying towel, but he goes and cuddles with it (and our boots) at the front door when he has a nap

No normal nipping methods have worked so far in getting him over this process and since he is a doodle breed, he gets significant snow build-up in his paws after being outside for awhile. 

one person suggested doggie boots but I can imagine the process to get them on him would take too long, a giant fight and wouldn't be worth it for the amount of time he actually spends in the snow.

The weird thing is, when we aren't wiping his paws we can play with his feet all day if we wanted and he won't care.

I know because of the snow, there may be some tenderness with his paws and the cold...but if the little bugger clamps onto my arm again I'm going to lose it on him.

Any tips on getting a dog over this. We live in Canada so he is in for a long ride for the next 12-15 years if he doesn't get over this eventually...


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

I bet his feet are so cold they hurt when he comes in and giving him little treats as you are drying them takes his mind off it. Could you put the towel on the floor and have him stand on it for a bit right when he comes in? Not that we have had any rain here but just having the dogs run over a towel in front of the door sure sops up a lot of water.

Or could it be the way you are leaning over him? Perhaps that is setting him off. He is probably coming in cold but is either not tired out or too tired and overstimulated.

If I had a hairy footed dog in snow country I would go to the bother of training him to accept some sort of bootie. The balloon kind does go on very quickly and they are cheap. Or you could have his feet shaved on the bottom to eliminate snow build up or even between toes on top as well. Then at least his feet would warm up quickly and snow couldn't accumulate.


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## HollowHeaven (Feb 5, 2012)

Could there be ice/snow balled up and stuck to his paws?
This happens to Diesel and he HATES it, will not let me fool with his paws to get it off.


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## mcdavis (May 1, 2012)

With our last dog he would occasionally get bored whilst we were cleaning his paws, especially with OH, although his reaction was nowhere near as bad as you describe. It helped if we positioned him so he could look out of the window whilst we cleaned, and if the snow was really bad we used to pop him into a bowl of warm-ish water which helped remove the icy bits. With the current dog I started the process of cleaning his paws from the day we got him even though they weren't dirty, just to get him used to it, and we also give him a treat afterwards.


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

In general, dogs don't like to have their paws handled. They can learn to tolerate it, but I believe that handling is painful. Or maybe as annoying as tickling someone's feet ?

I'm assuming that you never handle Jax's feet at other times. If true, then start getting him used to your handling his feet, with treats, unrelated to walking... and incrementally reduce, then eliminate the treats over a few weeks.


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## jade5280 (Feb 20, 2013)

My puppy is the same way. He also will bite at us when trying to clip his nails. Other times he is perfectly ok with us touching his paws. I think they will get used to it eventually.


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## Kyle071785 (Nov 28, 2013)

HollowHeaven said:


> Could there be ice/snow balled up and stuck to his paws?
> This happens to Diesel and he HATES it, will not let me fool with his paws to get it off.


he does get a significant amount of snow build-up even though the hair between his toes is kept short. I think its inevitable with a curly breed



hanksimon said:


> I'm assuming that you never handle Jax's feet at other times. If true, then start getting him used to your handling his feet, with treats, unrelated to walking... and incrementally reduce, then eliminate the treats over a few weeks.


we've handled his feet from day 1 (as mentioned in the OP). He's fine with everything to do with his feet aside from cleaning the snow off them



jade5280 said:


> I think they will get used to it eventually.


Hopefully


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## spotted nikes (Feb 7, 2008)

You can put a little warm water in a cat litter box and walk him into it, then onto a towel. It'll help.


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## Greater Swiss (Jun 7, 2011)

I had to teach Caeda to allow us to wipe her feet off. What I did was teach her "paw"....actually I taught her "right paw" and "left paw", then I introduced the towel (when we were in the house, dry, etc), first just holding it while I held her paw, then worked up to touching her paw for a sec, then worked up to wiping them and rubbing. Clicker and treats, rinse repeat. The back paws can be tricky....much easier to train if you have some help, but it can be done on your own. I basically started by click and treat for touching back paws, it took quite a while for her to get ok with having one back paw off the ground for more than a second, but she's not bad now, and again, introduce the cloth, etc. 

It takes a while, so I'd invest in a shaggy rug, or even use an old thrift shop blanket for your dog to walk over when you get in the house, or even better, get your dog to walk onto the blanket/rug, and lure them into a "spin" with a treat (maybe eventually turn that into a spin command if you feel like it), it'll get a fair bit of the ickies off, at least enough so you don't have to mop your floors constantly, or rent a steam cleaner daily . 

Side note....paw cleaning is a great one to teach, it helps with after bath-time too, and if you want to make bath time even easier, teach a roll-over or side command, get them laying down on the towel for a good towel-dry 

If you want to get really fancy (I didn't....ok, correction I want to but I've been lazy), you can teach your dog to scratch/paw at a mat on command, use a good mat that will get the snow off and voila, you have a foot-cleaning command. Yeah, sounds easy....lol.


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## Hambonez (Mar 17, 2012)

My dog thinks that drying off with a towel is fun fun party time and he tries to wrestle with it while you try to dry him. He otherwise ignores towels. 

My dog knows a "dig dig" command which we use for when we need help in the garden, and to get him to file his own nails since he won't let us cut them (sandpaper nailed to a board + "dig dig" = filed nails!). You could teach it and have him dry his feet on a mat.


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## cellophane (Dec 30, 2013)

Hambonez said:


> and to get him to file his own nails since he won't let us cut them (sandpaper nailed to a board + "dig dig" = filed nails!). You could teach it and have him dry his feet on a mat.


That's awesome!


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