It’s maybe a sad statement that reading about someone whose diseased toes were gnawed off by their dog doesn’t shock me anymore. It’s not an everyday event but it’s far from rare. An Indiana man learned about this the hard way when he woke up thinking his dog was licking his toes, when in fact, the dog had eaten them.

As is typical in cases like this, the person is a diabetic and had a foot infection, which contributed to the dog being attracted to the toes and the person not feeling the midnight snacking. Presumably, the person will be fine with some wound care and antibiotics. In fact, the dog may have just altered the manner of amputation if the toes were that severely affected. They may have been coming off one way on the other in the near future, but this is still not the desired approach.

A couple of questions come up sometimes in cases like this.

Is the man at risk of any infections from the dog?

• Certainly, there are concerns. This should be treated just like a bite since there was obviously contact between dog saliva and broken skin. Antibiotics were presumably already being used because of the toe infection, so that might have been enough, but antibiotic treatment would be needed in a situation like this given the type of exposure and the person’s compromised state.
• Rabies is unlikely but it still has to be considered. This is just like a bite, so a 10 day observation period of the dog would be indicated. There’s almost zero risk of rabies here, but when we’re talking about rabies, "almost" isn’t good enough.

Is the dog at risk of catching anything from the owner?

• This is perhaps the more likely of the two concerns. The dog was licking and eating infected tissue. Many of the bacteria that cause this type of infection can also infect dogs. The odds of the dog developing disease from this are pretty low. It’s more likely the dog would become a carrier of the bacterium for a while (e.g. in its mouth, nose, or intestinal tract). If the dog is otherwise healthy, it’s probably not going to suffer any consequences, but knowing what bacterium was causing the toe infection would help with that risk assessment.

While dogs amputating toes is rare, it’s surprising how often I hear about people who let their dogs lick diabetic ulcers. As well, I’ve heard of people who have looked down and realized their dog or cat was gnawing on their toes (not amputating – at least not yet – but chewing away nonetheless). Usually, these are diabetics. Usually, nothing bad will happen. However, a dog’s mouth contains many different bacteria that can cause severe illness given the right situation, and chewing on a toe of a diabetic patient in particular would fit into that "in the right situation" category.