Dog Paw Burns
Causes, Treatment, and Prevention
Reviewed by Juliane Evans
Paw burns can cause injury to the bottom of your pup’s feet, known as the paw pads, and these injuries can range from mild to severe. These pads serve a very important role in protecting your pup’s feet and supporting them in all activities from walking to running to jumping. Injuries like burns can occur in many different ways, including walking on hot surfaces or encountering chemicals.
Here are the causes, treatments, and how to prevent paw burns in your dog.
What Is a Paw Burn?
A paw burn is an injury to the skin and/or underlying structures of the paw pad. Heat, chemicals, and/or friction most commonly cause this. Burns are graded by their severity in a few different ways. Borrowing from the scale used in human medicine, burns are often categorized into first, second, third, or fourth degree grades:
A first-degree burn is the most superficial kind of burn where only the outer skin is affected.
Second-degree burns are slightly deeper, with more layers of the skin involved.
Third degree burns are defined as full-thickness damage, meaning all the layers of the skin are injured.
Fourth degree burns are the most serious and describe burns where all the skin is damaged and underlying muscle and/or bone may also be burned.
Symptoms of Paw Burns in Dogs
Symptoms
Redness
Moist, oozing wounds
Eschar formation
Pain
Limping or refusing to walk
Licking or chewing at the paws
Bad odor
Pus or green discharge if infected
Depending on the kind of burn your pup sustains, the symptoms will vary. Physical signs of a burn often lag behind the initial injury by 48 hours or more. Even if your pup’s paws look ok at first, they may develop wounds days later as the damage results in the death of that tissue.
Signs of a burn include redness and scaling of the paw pads, which is most common in first-degree burns. This can progress to deeper redness and a moist, oozing appearance to the wound in second-degree burns. In third- and fourth-degree burns, an eschar may form, which is a leathery or charred layer of dead tissue over the wound.
First- and second-degree burns are actually the most painful so in these cases, your dog may be limping, holding up the affected paw, or refusing to walk altogether—especially if multiple paws are injured. Dogs may also lick or chew obsessively at the wounded area of their paw. These wounds are very vulnerable to infection, so you may notice a bad smell, pus, or green discharge from the wound if it becomes infected as time goes on.
What Causes Paw Burns in Dogs?
Unless dogs are wearing booties, their paw pads are the only protection on their feet. Whatever they step in or on comes into direct contact with their paw pads. Heat-related thermal burns, chemical burns, or friction-related burns can all cause a paw pad burn in dogs. In some cases, burns may be a combination of more than one of these causes.
Thermal Burns
Thermal burns occur when the skin of the paw pads interacts with something hot. The conditions that result in a burn will vary depending on how high the temperature is and how long the contact is. We know from research studies that injuries will occur within 60 seconds of exposure to surfaces at 158 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Burns can also occur at temperatures as low as 111 degrees Fahrenheit if the exposure is long enough.
Any hot surface that reaches these temperatures has potential to cause a burn. For example, pavement on a 77 degree Fahrenheit day can reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Some other causes of thermal burns include house fires or wild fires, stepping on hot coals such as in a recently extinguished fireplace or campfire, electric heating pads, radiators, hot stoves, and/or space heaters.
Chemical Burns
Chemical burns are caused by contact with caustic chemicals. These kinds of burns also lead to similar tissue damage but are the result of your pup stepping on these chemicals, usually in liquid form. Some of the likely culprits include bleach, strong acid, paint thinner, drain cleaner, gasoline, silica gel, or liquid cement. Some pet owners also worry about snow and ice melt causing burns to the skin, but in most cases, these will only cause minor irritation.
Friction Burns
Friction burns are the result of repeated, rough motion against the skin, leading to similar kinds of injury to the tissues. This tends to happen when dogs are playing on concrete or other rough surfaces during games like fetch or chase where they are running at full speed and then repeatedly stopping short. It is this sliding and stopping motion that is suspected to cause friction burns.
How Do Vets Diagnose Paw Burns in Dogs?
Diagnosing a burn may be straightforward when there is a recent history of exposure to a hot surface, caustic chemical, or high friction experience. However, there are some cases when it is not as obvious, and the wound develops slowly over many days without a known exposure.
In all cases, your veterinarian will begin with a thorough examination of the wound as well as your pup’s full body to look for any other sites of injury or abnormalities.
If there is not a clear history of a burn happening, your veterinarian will have to investigate the wound further to try to determine the cause. Many causes of injury can look similar to a burn including certain infections, autoimmune diseases, or cancers. If there was no obvious cause for a burn, your veterinarian may recommend a biopsy of the skin. This means a small sample of the skin is removed and submitted for evaluation of the cells to help determine what caused the wound.
Depending if your pet has other signs of illness or injury, your vet may also recommend other tests such as bloodwork and X-rays to determine if there is damage to the internal organs. This would be especially important if the burns occurred in a fire where your dog may be suffering from smoke inhalation or your dog seems to have other complications. A culture of the wound may also be performed to test for the presence of infection.
How to Treat Paw Burns
Treatment depends on the kind of burn as well as the severity of the injury. If you observe the burn right when it happens, the first step is to cool the skin and/or decontaminate the skin if chemicals are involved. You can hold their paw under the faucet and let cool water run over the skin for at least 15 minutes or pour cool water over the area.
If the injury is caused by a chemical burn, be sure to take photos of the label and/or write down the name of all ingredients in the bottle. You can use that information to contact the Pet Poison Helpline and find out what they recommend for the next steps of treatment.
In all cases of a paw burn, you should bring your dog to the vet right away for further evaluation. Your vet will assess the injuries and help you to come up with a treatment plan. This may involve putting your dog under anesthesia for wound treatments to remove damaged tissue and clean the wound. The wound will then be dressed with topical medications to prevent infection and promote healing before being covered with a bandage.
Post-Burn Care
Most dogs with paw burns will need oral pain medications and antibiotics as well. Depending on how deep and how extensive the wounds are, your dog may need daily bandage changes and/or multiple wound treatments under anesthesia to manage the injuries as they are healing. In more severe cases, additional surgeries may be needed to try to save as much of the skin as possible, or to amputate parts of the skin or toes if they are too damaged to recover.
If multiple paws are affected and your dog cannot walk comfortably at first, you may have to provide additional support such as a sling to help hold up your pup for short walks, and soft, clean bedding where your dog can rest. Dogs should wear a cone while their paws are healing to prevent them from licking and chewing at the bandages or the wounds themselves.
Prognosis for Dogs with Paw Burns
The prognosis for paw burns varies based on how severe the burn is as well as what part of the paw is affected.
First and Second-Degree Burns
First and second-degree burns have the best prognosis for full recovery. A first degree burn usually heals completely within a few days. A second degree burn may take up to 3 weeks to heal, and can result in mild scarring.
Third-Degree Burns
Third-degree burns cannot heal without surgery, often will require many weeks of treatment, and usually result in scarring.
Fourth-Degree Burns
Fourth-degree burns have the most grave prognosis as they can cause severe complications and can become life-threatening. Almost all cases of fourth-degree burns will require amputation because the underlying muscles and bones are damaged. The overall prognosis also depends on where the injury occurs on the paw and if more than one paw is involved. Dogs put the bulk of their weight on their middle digits or "toes," so when this part of the paw is involved, longterm complications like scarring or the need to amputate a toe can have more long-term consequences.
How to Prevent Paw Burns
Many cases of paw burns are preventable by taking precautions and creating barriers to keep your pup away from hot surfaces and dangerous chemicals. If you are cooking, building a fire, or using caustic chemicals at home, use a gate to keep your dog far from the danger zone, or consider separating your pup in another room just until you can pup-proof the space again.
Hot Pavement
When it comes to walking your dog on hot pavement, try to avoid it as much as possible by walking early or late in the day, and/or sticking to shaded areas. If you must walk over hot pavement, hot sand, or other hot surfaces, consider putting booties on your dog to protect those precious paw pads or carry your pup over those sections of the walk if they are short distances. Avoid playing fetch or chase on rough surfaces like concrete and stick to the grass for those kinds of games.
Sometimes your pup’s paw pads will toughen up over time, especially over the course of the season if they repeatedly walk over rough surfaces. It is important not to overdo these exposures early in the season as temperatures heat up or if your dog is just not used to walking over rough surfaces yet. There are some products on the market to help toughen up the skin on the paws and these usually take a few days to take effect. Be sure to check with your vet before applying anything like this to your pup’s feet, and try booties in the mean time to protect their feet.
Even with the best prevention plans, accidents can happen so be sure to seek treatment right away if you suspect a paw pad burn. Early treatment can make a big difference in the timeline for healing and getting your pup on the road to recovery.
