Has your dog earned the distinction of being nicknamed Sir Licks-a-Lot for giving slobbery kisses and gooey licks to your hands, toes, and feet?

Though some pet parents find the licking endearing and others prefer dogs keep their tongues to themselves, experts say it’s a pretty common behavior.

So, why do dogs lick your feet? Are there health risks to dogs licking feet? How can you stop your dog from licking your feet?

We have expert insight on how to get a foothold on this quirky canine behavior.

Common Reasons Dogs Lick Feet

The most likely reasons dogs lick human feet fall mainly into two categories, and it’s important to distinguish the difference.

Is the licking an occasional situational behavior? Or is your dog licking feet compulsively?

“If a dog licks somebody’s foot while they’re resting in a chair, and the dog is right there and licks it, and this happens once in a while, that could just be because the dog finds that foot to be a toy or a game and licks it,” says Gene Pavlovsky, veterinarian and chief of staff at the Dr. John A. Coyne South Clinic at the University of Illinois.

Besides showering your feet with big wet kisses, dogs may also lick your toes, hands, or face. Licking can also be a sign of affection, or perhaps your dog just likes the smell of one of your appendages and decides they must taste it.

“That could be because of lotion on somebody’s foot, or somebody just took off their socks or their shoes, and it just smells funny,” Dr. Pavlovsky says.

Yeah, there’s kinda a big ewwwww factor when you think about stinky, salty, sweaty feet being appealing, but you know, dogs like a lot of gross things.

A dog may also lick to show fear or appeasement.

“Appeasement is basically when the dog is stressed or scared and licking you as a way to get you to sort of back down, or back away, in a sense,” Dr. Pavlovsky says. “The person might think of that as a dog kind of apologizing and feeling guilty, whereas it’s the dog’s way of saying that they’re scared.”

If a dog is persistently and repetitively licking, it may signal a problem.

“It could be a displacement behavior, which is a normal behavior, but it’s performed out of context,” Dr. Pavlovsky says. “If a dog is anxious, for example, scared or frustrated, they may engage in this displacement behavior as a way to sort of soothe themselves.”

Is It Safe for Dogs to Lick Your Feet?

All this likely leaves you wondering: Is it bad if my dog licks my feet? It could be. Alongside behavioral concerns, there are some health and safety risks for both humans and dogs.

If a person has an open sore or cut on their foot and a dog has infectious bacteria in their mouth, though rare, those germs could be transmitted through the wound and cause an infection.

“If the foot itself is healthy and has intact skin, that serves as protection against most infectious agents,” Dr. Pavlovsky says.

On the flip side, you could make your dog sick if they lick something you have on your hands or feet, like lotion, sunscreen, detergent, or other chemicals that are toxic to them.

“People put all sorts of topical products on their bodies that sometimes you don’t even know what’s in them,” Dr. Pavlovsky says.

If you do have some sort of cream, ointment, or anything potentially poisonous to dogs on your body, don’t let your dog lick that area.

Should You Let Your Dog Lick Your Feet?

If you don’t have anything harmful on your feet and no open sores or infections, it’s likely fine to allow your dog to lick your feet.

“I think a lot of pet owners think it’s kind of cute and endearing that their dogs lick them; some people like the sensation,” Dr. Pavlovsky says. “If this is not a pattern, then I think there’s very little wrong with an occasional foot lick.”

But if your dog is licking out of anxiety, you should address that behavior.

“If it happens all the time, and they’re seeking you out, and they’re licking your feet or hands, and if they’re engaging in other behaviors, like pacing and barking, then I think that should alert the pet owner to seek some help,” Dr. Pavlovsky says.

How To Stop Your Dog From Licking Your Feet

While you may need some professional advice to get off on the right foot, you can start by identifying the trigger and removing it.

“If you’re sitting on the couch, and the dog seeks you out every time you sit down, they can’t leave your feet alone, one way to fix that would be to remove that trigger, which is your feet, meaning that you would just wear socks, slippers, or not extend your feet,” Dr. Pavlovsky says. “Once that’s gone, the dog no longer sees that trigger and doesn’t display that behavior.”

You could also give your dog chews and toys to lick, rather than your feet or other body parts. If you interrupt your dog’s licking to redirect the behavior, be sure to have them do something else for a minute or two before giving them a toy, so they don’t think they’re being rewarded for licking.

However, if anxiety appears to be fueling your dog’s licking, you’ll want to address the underlying cause. Trainers frequently say a lack of exercise and boredom are culprits in many cases of dog frustration.

If you think your dog is getting enough enrichment but still shows signs of obsessive licking, it may be time to talk to your veterinarian or a certified trainer.

Frequently Asked Feet Questions

Still have questions about what it means when a dog licks your feet, but are afraid to ask? Here are answers to some of the most common feet questions:

Why Do Puppies Lick Feet?

Puppies lick feet for many of the same reasons adult dogs do: exploring (potentially stinky) smells, bonding, self-soothing, and showing affection. It’s interesting to note that behavior learned during puppyhood can carry over into adulthood. So if your puppy licks your feet and you laugh or show joy or enthusiasm, your pup may feel like they’re positively rewarded for the licking by the attention they receive, which can lead to the behavior being repetitive. (This goes for adult dogs as well, of course.)​

Why Do Dogs Lick Your Toes?

Try not to get toe-toally grossed out, but toes are usually the stinkiest part of the feet and may emit that (gagging here) eau de cheesy, rotten-egg like odor, and as we all know, some dogs have a real knack for enjoying disgusting things, so if the shoe fits…

Toes may also be more fun to lick; all the cracks and crevices might be a nice challenge, like a foot cheese puzzle for dogs. (Yes, the author is cringing at the thought as she writes…)

Is Licking Feet a Sign of a Health Issue?

Dr. Pavlovsky says excessive licking of the feet or even other inanimate objects can sometimes be a sign of oral pain, discomfort, dental problems, nausea, gastrointestinal issues, or swallowing difficulties. ​Especially if the behavior is new or the frequency or intensity suddenly increases, it’s a good idea to have your vet take a look.

Why Do Dogs Lick Feet?

So why do dogs lick your hands and feet? Though some of the reasons are a little unsettling, remember it’s fairly normal (though it can be a bit off-footing).

While some dogs and pet parents have fun enjoying getting those woofer kisses, if you think your dog may have a problem, don’t sidestep the issue.

“Veterinarians are not often consulted for these seemingly medically unrelated things, but a lot of times they are medically related,” Dr. Pavlovsky says. “I would make your veterinarian one of the first stops in terms of information seeking.”

Today, science is leading us in some new and remarkable directions, further blurring the differences between humans and our animal companions. Take sleep, for instance: we know that REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep in humans—that highly fluid sleep stage typified by intense brain activity, vivid dreaming, and rapid eye movements —is a critical component of deep sleep. But REM sleep isn’t confined to only humans: signs of it have long been found in dozens of mammals, but more recently in a surprising and expanding group of other creatures: cuttlefish, octopus, rodents, birds, reptiles . . . and even spiders. These new discoveries have prompted some researchers to suggest that dreaming, once believed to be the sole domain of humans, occurs in far more species than we ever thought.

Do Dogs Dream?

Back in the 1800s, the majority of scientists believed that almost all mammals experienced vivid dreams. That vision fell out of favor with the rise of behaviorism in the 20^th century, with many scholars poo-pooing the idea that any species other than humans was capable of dreaming.

Today, we know better, and understand more. As Jane Goodall said, “We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was ‘just human.’”

Which brings us to one of our most enduring companion animals, the dog.  Watch a dog in deep sleep, and you’ll see him twitching and pawing and barking and whining, and if you look closely, you can see movement behind his lidded eyes. Is he dreaming? If so, what is he dreaming about?

Defining Dreams

First, what is a “dream”?  While there is no unified definition of dreaming, the dictionary defines dreams as a series of mental images, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily during sleep. Once, scientists believed that dreams arise only during REM sleep, but research over the last 50 years has proven that dreams occur throughout both sleep cycles, although REM dreams tend to be more emotional, vivid, and are longer.

Scientists believe that dreaming is an evolutionary state shared by many species, and serves similar functions such as memory reinforcement, but even they can’t say for certain if our dogs have the same emotional experiences as humans. In many respects their physiology and behavior are similar to ours, leading to the hypothesis that we also share at least some similarities in mental activity, including dreaming.

Exploring Animal Sleep Studies

Yet in most of the 20^th century, while a huge body of scientific studies focused on animal sleep, researchers scrupulously avoided the subject of dreams. Many insisted that the idea of animal dreams was simply anthropomorphizing: the assignment of human traits and emotions to non-humans. It wasn’t until the 2020s that the word “dream” began to enter the lexicon of scientific studies on animal sleep, based in large part on research using EEGs (electroencephalograms), which measure electrical activity in the brain. This revealed that during sleep, a dog’s brain wave patterns are almost identical to ours and exhibit the same type of electrical activity.

Signs That Dogs Dream

Just as humans often exhibit physical reactions during dreams by talking, moaning, laughing, and sometimes sleepwalking, dogs also respond subconsciously to their dreams with physical signs: twitching their paws, wagging their tail, whining, grumbling, licking their lips, and sometimes barking. While all of this cannot prove with absolute certainty that dogs are dreaming, it is the clearest indication thus far that they are.

Unless in the far distant future dogs learn to speak (and what, do you think, would they say?), we need to rely on physical cues to tell us. Lest I be accused of that much-dreaded anthropomorphizing, such assumptions are not so far-fetched: with our fellow humans, we take cues from their physical expressions every day: someone is limping, and we presume they have been hurt . . . someone laughs, we believe something was funny . . . someone grimaces when they bend down, we surmise their back is bothering them. Doctors and mental health experts are taught to watch a patient’s body language, teachers base many of their actions on a student’s behavior, and even our clichés—”watch what they do, not what they say”—reveal just how much we rely on physical signals.

What Do Dogs Dream About?

So, if dogs dream, what do they dream about? Do dogs dream about their owners? Food? Chasing rabbits?

We can only theorize, but it appears they dream about their day. For instance, EEG studies done on rats show they dreamed about the mazes they ran earlier: the rats’ brain activity during sleep was exactly the same as their brain waves while they were running through the actual maze. Researchers could even tell precisely where the rats were in their dream maze. If rats dream of past events, then it stands to reason that dogs, who are more intelligent and whose brains are far more complex, must have similar dreams.

It’s also likely that dogs dream of things that are central to their world, such as food, playing, their human companions, and even more fundamental to the way they experience the world, smelling. Dr. David Peña-Guzmán, author of When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness, explains that a canine dream would be far different than a human one, because it would be based upon the unique circumstances of a dog’s life.  Dogs dream on their own terms, and of their own experiences—and since much of how dogs interact with the world is through their noses, it follows that smell is likely a key component of their dreams (unlike humans, whose dreams rarely if ever include smells). A 2025 study goes further, noting that dogs appear to have emotional responses to scents, which only heightens the likelihood that a dog’s dreams would include smells. Since dogs process life through their noses and eyes rather than logically, their dreams probably integrate imaginative events with common scents and sights.

We also know that dogs are capable of experiencing a wide range of negative feelings, including fear and anxiety. Studies on PTSD in dogs reveal that they develop symptoms similar to humans suffering from the disorder, including sleep disturbances, and that the distress from their trauma manifests in their dreams. For dogs with longstanding trauma, such as those with abusive or neglectful pasts, the likelihood of experiencing nightmares may be even higher.

We may never know for certain what mysteries lie within the quiet whispers of our dog’s dreaming mind, any more than they can know what is in ours—but it’s far from fanciful to believe that their dream life is every bit as vibrant, diverse, and emotional as our own.