Canine Hot Spots

E. J. Wass
Oct 16, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Oct 17, 2025

What is a hot spot?

Hot spots on dogs are red, moist, irritated, sometimes oozy or crusty skin lesions that often appear suddenly, with no warning. If you don’t get a handle on them right away, they can spread fast. Hot spots are also called acute moist dermatitis, pyotraumatic dermatitis or pyoderma and they can show up anywhere on your dog. They can occur for many reasons including insect bites, allergic reactions or scratches and scrapes.

On the 3rd of July, I noticed that one of my dogs, Betty, had a small (5p sized) red, moist area on her neck, which looked like a hot spot. She is nearly 9 years old and has never had a hot spot before. She’d had an injection a couple of weeks before this and I wondered if this had been the cause, or possibly a grass seed as they are everywhere at this time of year?

Vets will usually prescribe a steroid to help with inflammation, and sometimes an antibiotic too, but whatever the cause hot spots can usually be managed at home using natural products if caught early.

So we carefully examined the wound and shaved as much fur away from the area as we could so that we could assess it properly, and see exactly what we were dealing with. It’s also very important to expose hot spots to the air so that they can dry up. We couldn’t see anything in it when we carefully cleaned the area with some LUCCA Wound Spray (alternatively you could use Leucillin or colloidal silver instead if you have that - but do not use both together!) on a cotton wool pad, and then gently patted it dry.

Fortunately, I had some Green Clay in my dogs' first aid cupboard, so I applied some to the sore area using a soft brush (a blusher brush is ideal). Green Clay absorbs toxins and helps to dry the wound. This was rather a messy procedure, and a large area of Betty’s side was green after this!

We then had to think of a way of preventing Betty from touching the area, which was right on the junction of her neck / right shoulder, so a buster or soft collar wouldn’t have prevented her from scratching it with her back leg! We tried a tee shirt first, but that didn’t cover the area properly either.

Thinking cap on … and a sock to the rescue! Just a thick, ankle sock secured on her back paw with vet wrap at first, but then we bought some proper dog socks, which were much secure. We also tried to keep the area dry while the hot spot healed.

After a couple of days, the itch seemed to have gone, but we kept her sock on for several days just in case. A scab started to form in the middle of the shaved area. If the hot spot oozes through the clay, just apply a bit more of the Green Clay powder on top and the scab will get thicker. You must keep the area dry at all times.

And then on the 17th of July (2weeks later), the scab fell off to reveal new skin underneath; it was quite pink but dry and soft.