DERMATOLOGY
Shaping the future of animal health
Conditions of the
Canine Foot Pad
Dr Heidi Schroeder, BVSc MMedVet(Med)
Small Animal Physician
Willow Park Small Animal Medicine Specialist Hospital,
Willow Glen, Pretoria
Tel: 012 813 8009
[email protected]
Foot pad conditions are usually part of generalised skin conditions or systemic
conditions that also cause skin lesions and clinical signs elsewhere on or in a patient.
The most important differential diagnoses are discussed in this article.
There are not many foot pad conditions and therefore
when the footpads are affected, they can aid in the diagnosis of a particular condition. There are also a few
conditions that affect the foot pads only.
When a patient is presented with a foot pad condition it is important to take a good history and do a full
clinical examination. Consider the age (e.g. genodermatoses, parasites and infectious diseases in young
dogs versus auto-immune and metabolic conditions
in older dogs).
It is also important to determine whether there are
concurrent systemic signs, e.g. necrolytic migratory
erythema (NME), whether one or more pads are affected and whether there are signs of skin disease
elsewhere on the body. Skin or foot pad biopsies for
histopathology are required in many cases to make a
final diagnosis.
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