Picking at hind leg?

[Sandy]

Toby has been picking at a spot on his hind leg for a couple of days now.  Whenever I catch him he gets a stern "Leave it" and he does.  However, I noticed today he has pulled all the hair out of one spot.  I have put a sock on his leg, and hopefully that will break the habit of  "picking" he seems to have picked up.  It is not tender, or red, or hot.  I guess it could be a skin allergy, although he isn't itchy in general.  I'm thinking maybe he got a bug bite and started biting at it, then pulled some hair out, and then, because dogs are creatures of habit, kept pulling it out?  Any thoughts on that?

 

Other than that, he's almost 2, calmed WAY down, and a lovely boy.  :)

[Lorraine Bromley]

I can relate. I decided to trim Neely's nether region so the pee wouldn't run down the hair like the tip of a paintbrush. He never licked himself prior to that. After I DID that he licked it and chewed at it for weeks. He had it black and blue! I thought that I had cute it too short and it itched but after weeks? So we had to do the same thing. Everytime he went to lick it we said LEAVE IT very sternly. Finally he would start and we would give him a look and he would leave it. He only licks it for real reasons now and it is not obsessive. If we think he's doing it in front of guests or too long we still tell him to leave it. I really think it was a behaviour .

[Sandy]

Yes - I'm kind of thinking this is getting to be more behaviour as well. And perhaps the skin is itchy with the hair growing back in? At any rate, one stern leave it and he stops. I'm hoping in a couple of days we're back to nothing. We'll see, I guess.