dog licking the baseboards?

Question

i have a small breed dog (20lb range) who comes to work with us in an office environment......for the last 3 days he has been going around the office licking the baseboards and crevices of our desks/printers/file cabinets, our air conditioning vent, basically anything with any dust on it....when i take him outside he licks the crevices of our concrete steps and during this he periodically sneezes and coughs.....can anyone think of why he would do this?.....one thing that i can think of that could possibly be it (but i dont know why he would do it outside) is our cleaning lady just started using carpet fresh type powder on the floors last friday and i'm thinking that it could be settling in the crevices where she cant get to it to vacuum and he is licking this up.....might this be it and if so is it a danger to him?

Answer 1

Honestly, he could be doing it for a number of reasons. It could be as you stated, or anxiety, restlessness, boredom...

It however can lead to chewing. I would recommend an anti chewing product. You can get cheap spray on anti-chew bottles at wal-mart. It worked for me. Some dogs like it though so trial and error would fix the problem. Also, some nice treats or chewers that he likes would distract him. The tasteylicious kind of course ;) is there anything better?

Also, there could be a tooth problem. Look into that. You can do it yourself looking for dark yellow in the mouth, raw looking gums, black spots, or something stuck in the teeth or on the roof of his mouth.

The sneezing I would assume is because of a smell he doesn't like or that one that bothers his cute lil sniffer. Could be the carpet fresh like you said. I tend to use carpet sprays to clean and the dogs go into sneezing fits to show their distaste when it's that time of the week. The powder though, we can't use it because it bothers my asthma. Try another product if you can, if you can't bring along a large dog bed or blanket, to help sheild your darlin doggie from the smell.

As far as it being a danger to him. You would have to check for a warning on the product.

Hope this helps.