Take a sniff of your dog’s paws. Smell like corn chips? Here’s why

This story comes with homework.

Go sniff your dog’s paws.

Take a good whiff.

Breathe in that lovely eau de paw-fume.

What do they smell like? Corn chips? Fritos? Maybe corn tortillas? They probably do.

“Did you know that most dog feet smell like corn chips and many dog people love the smell of their dog’s feet?” dog blogger Beth Meadows recently wrote on the DogTime.com website.

“This may or may not be a surprise to you, fellow dog owner and dog feet lover. I for one don’t understand it. Perhaps because I know all too well what my dogs are walking through every day.”

This phenomenon is known as “Fritos Paws,” or “Fritos Feet.”

“Why does my dog smell like Fritos?” one Twitter user just asked the class on Monday.

He’s not alone.

“Besides puppy breath, it’s one of the better smells our dogs naturally produce. Although, once you find out why paws smell so delicious, you might not want to put your nose so close again,” wrote The Dogington Post earlier this year.

“Even the cleanest dogs have trillions of bacteria living on their skin. But dog’s feet, trampling through the grass and dirt, being licked, with moist folds of skin and fur between the toe pads, are breeding grounds for bacteria and yeast.”

Pseudomonas and proteus are natural bacteria your dog picks up from soil or water he walks through, Colorado veterinarian Robert J. Silver told The Huffington Post the last time “Fritos Paws” captured the zeitgeist.

The pseudomonas create the corn chip smell, Silver said.

“That bacteria-laden sweat gets stuck in the fur coat between the foot pads and – voila! You get “Frito feet”!” Meadows writes.

The smell of a dog’s “Fritos feet” is clearly an acquired fragrance.

“If your dog’s ‘Frito feet’ affliction is strong enough to make you crave a trip to the vending machine, there are things you can do to keep the odor under control, like keeping the fur between his nails trimmed and making sure his paws are scrubbed,” The Dodo animal news website advised last year.

And if your doggie is smelling more like 3 p.m. snack time at work than woman’s best friend, a trip to the vet might be in order.

Sometimes, Silver warned, when the Frito smell becomes excessive it can be a sign of infection. If your dog seems to be excessively licking his paws, or you see inflammation in the webbed part between his toes, it’s time to see the vet, he said.

This story was originally published July 31, 2018 at 8:22 AM with the headline "Take a sniff of your dog’s paws. Smell like corn chips? Here’s why."