Dog licking the floor or carpet? Excessive licking and the gut

Does your dog keep licking the floor, carpet, sofa, or even your hands and feet? An occasional lick does not necessarily mean anything. Dogs explore the world with their mouths and noses, and a surface may simply smell interesting. But when licking becomes repetitive or intense, or it feels as if the dog simply cannot stop, it is worth treating it as a symptom rather than just an odd habit.

One possible cause is gastrointestinal discomfort or nausea. But one word matters here: possible. Excessive licking of surfaces, or ELS, is not a diagnosis, and more than one mechanism can be behind it.

When does licking become a symptom?

ELS refers to licking surfaces and objects with a frequency, duration, or intensity that goes beyond normal exploratory behaviour. A dog may lick the floor, wall, carpet, furniture, or other surfaces. Some dogs also smack their lips, swallow repeatedly, seek out grass, or become restless. These signs may fit with nausea or other gastrointestinal discomfort, but none of them tells us what the underlying cause is.

It is also useful to distinguish licking surfaces from licking the dog’s own body. Repeated licking of a paw or skin area may be related to itching, local inflammation, infection, pain, or even nerve irritation. The behaviour may look similar from the outside, but the cause may be very different.

What did the ELS study find?

A prospective study published in 2012 evaluated 19 dogs with excessive licking of surfaces and compared them with 10 healthy control dogs. In addition to behavioural, physical, and neurological assessment, all of the dogs underwent a thorough gastrointestinal work-up.

A gastrointestinal abnormality was found in 14 of the 19 dogs. The findings included inflammatory changes in the gastrointestinal tract, delayed gastric emptying, chronic pancreatitis, a gastric foreign body, and giardiasis. After treatment directed at the problem that had been identified, 10 of 17 dogs improved substantially and excessive licking of surfaces resolved completely in 9 dogs during follow-up.

That is a genuinely interesting result, but not a universal formula. The sample was small, and the study itself emphasised that ELS is a nonspecific symptom. The ELS dogs were also not significantly more anxious than the control dogs in the veterinary-clinic setting. So it would be too simplistic to say either “it is just OCD” or “it is almost always the gut”.

The gut is one possible cause, not the only one

If a dog excessively licks surfaces, it is worth considering oral and dental problems, neurological disease, metabolic or electrolyte disturbances, medication side effects, possible toxin exposure, cognitive changes, and genuinely behavioural causes alongside gastrointestinal problems. Sometimes more than one factor is involved at the same time.

The most useful question is not only “what is the dog licking?” but also “when does it happen?”. Does an episode start after eating? On an empty stomach? At night? After a stressful event? Does it come with lip smacking, repeated swallowing, grass eating, gas, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, a change in appetite, or weight loss? Timing often gives a veterinarian more information than the symptom alone.

How does a veterinarian distinguish the causes?

There is no single “ELS test”. Assessment starts with the history and physical examination, and what comes next depends on the dog’s other symptoms. For some dogs, reviewing the mouth and diet and carrying out a structured diet trial may be enough. For another dog, faecal testing, blood tests, abdominal ultrasound, or other investigations may be justified. A foreign body, pancreatitis, parasites, and chronic enteropathy naturally require different approaches.

Diagnostics help us understand whether the licking is being driven by disease or another problem that needs treatment. An integrative approach adds another question: why did the gut become unbalanced, and what can be changed in the diet, microbiome, feeding rhythm, stress, or lifestyle so that the problem is not addressed only at the level of symptoms?

Food can be part of treatment, but symptom improvement does not tell us everything about food quality

With gastrointestinal problems, food deserves to be taken very seriously. One thing newer studies show quite convincingly is that a structured dietary change can be a real therapeutic intervention in chronic enteropathy.

In a 2023 randomised study, 19 of 23 dogs with non-protein-losing chronic enteropathy, or 83%, responded to the first dietary change. An important detail is that there was no significant difference in treatment response between the hydrolysed fish-protein diets and the limited-ingredient control diet. In other words, this study does not show that a hydrolysed veterinary diet is necessarily better. It shows instead how important it can be to find a food that suits the individual dog.

Can hydrolysed food be a solution?

The 2025 study is especially interesting in this context. Dogs with chronic enteropathy were fed a dry diet for ten weeks in which extensively hydrolysed poultry feathers were the sole protein source, and the dogs’ clinical signs improved. However, this was a small, open-label pilot study without a control group.

The study was also funded by Royal Canin, and the company’s involvement was substantial: some of the authors worked for Royal Canin or had financial ties to the company; Royal Canin was involved in the study design, supplied the test diet, carried out part of the statistical analysis, participated in the decision to publish the results, funded editorial support, and reviewed the manuscript before submission.

That does not automatically mean the study result is wrong. It does mean the result should be interpreted more cautiously than usual, particularly because there was no control group and the food being tested was the funder’s own product. From this study we can say that the dogs’ clinical signs improved while they were on this diet. We cannot say with the same confidence how much of the improvement was caused by this specific food, how it would compare with an independently selected diet, or whether the same food is an optimal long-term choice in terms of quality.

Are veterinary therapeutic diets suitable for long-term use?

This is one area where the views of integrative veterinarians often diverge from the conventional approach. Dr Judy Morgan is critical of highly processed veterinary therapeutic diets, particularly because of their ingredients and degree of processing. In her podcast, she has emphasised that such diets may be used when necessary as a short-term therapeutic tool to bring a problem under control, rather than automatically becoming the dog’s staple diet for the rest of its life.

For me, the important distinction is between two questions: can a food control symptoms, and is it also a food I would want to feed my dog as a long-term staple? Those are not necessarily the same question.

If a controlled or hydrolysed diet helps a dog’s gastrointestinal tract settle down, that is useful information and can sometimes be a necessary interim step. Once the dog is stable, however, it is worth asking the next question: can the same result be maintained with a food whose ingredients, raw-material quality, and degree of processing are better suited to long-term feeding? For one dog, the answer may be a carefully formulated fresh-food diet; for another, a novel protein source or another individually suitable food.

If you would like to explore this side in more detail, see FendaF’s article Sensitive Digestion in Dogs: How to Support the Gut Calmly.

If the licking comes with suspected giardiasis or recurring gastrointestinal problems, also see Giardiasis in dogs: can and how should you support your dog at home?.

What does an integrative approach add?

Integrative veterinarians often add questions that there is not always time to explore in depth during a short appointment: does the dog eat too quickly, do the meal timings suit the dog, how does the dog respond to stress, did digestion change after antibiotics or other medication, is the diet genuinely suitable for this dog, and does the problem come in waves together with other symptoms? These questions can be very valuable.

Probiotics, prebiotic fibres, certain botanical supports, or other approaches aimed at supporting digestion may be part of the plan for some dogs, but they should not be used instead of a diagnosis. “Natural” does not automatically mean that a particular product is right for every dog or that the dose does not matter.

Faddy’s story: a useful clue, not proof

Faddy once went through periods when he licked the floor. My own observation was that when I added a supplement intended to support his digestive well-being, the behaviour became less frequent. For me, that was a useful clue and made me look more closely at the digestive side of the picture.

But one dog’s experience cannot tell us why the change happened, nor prove that the same supplement would do the same for another dog. With what I know today, I would also look much more closely at the timing of the episodes, eating, stool, other signs of nausea, and whether anything else changed at the same time.

What can you note down at home before the appointment?

• when the licking starts and how long the episode lasts;
• what exactly the dog licks and whether the behaviour stops when attention is redirected;
• whether there is any link with eating, an empty stomach, stress, or activity;
• whether there is lip smacking, repeated swallowing, grass eating, vomiting, gas, or a change in stool;
• whether appetite, body weight, thirst, energy level, or behaviour has changed;
• which medications, supplements, treats, and new foods the dog is receiving.

A short phone video can be surprisingly useful for the veterinarian because the behaviour may not happen during the appointment.

When should you not wait at home?

If excessive licking is accompanied by repeated vomiting or unproductive retching, severe abdominal pain or distension, blood in vomit or stool, marked lethargy, refusal of food or water, rapid weight loss, suspected foreign-body ingestion or poisoning, or neurological signs, the dog needs prompt veterinary assessment. Persistent ELS also deserves investigation even when there are no other major symptoms yet, because a change in behaviour may be the first clue that the dog does not feel well.

What should you take away from this?

Licking the floor is not a diagnosis. It can be a sign of gastrointestinal discomfort, but the same behaviour can also have oral, neurological, metabolic, or behavioural causes. The most sensible approach is to take the symptom seriously, gather context, and look for the cause. Sometimes the answer is a change in food, sometimes treatment, and sometimes something else entirely. A good plan does not begin with deciding which “camp” wins; it begins with what actually helps this particular dog feel better.

Used sources:

• Bécuwe-Bonnet V, Bélanger M-C, Frank D, Parent J, Hélie P. Gastrointestinal disorders in dogs with excessive licking of surfaces. Journal of Veterinary Behavior. 2012;7(4):194-204.
• Simpson KW et al. Randomized controlled trial of hydrolyzed fish diets in dogs with chronic enteropathy. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2023;37(6):2334-2343.
• Freiche V et al. An extensively hydrolysed protein-based extruded diet in dogs with chronic enteropathy after previous diet-trial failure. BMC Veterinary Research. 2025;21:68.
• Judy Morgan, DVM, with Chris Bessent. Building the Right Nutritional Framework For Sick Pets. Naturally Healthy Pets Podcast, 7.03.2023.
• Cândido MV et al. Gastric mucosal pathology in Belgian Shepherd dogs with and without clinical signs of gastric disease. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica. 2021.

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