For comfort, many of her clients use Musher’s Secret, a wax, Ms. Stelzer said. Owners can coat the dog’s paws with it before a walk; petroleum jelly, like Vaseline, can also work. But in a pinch, the solution can simply be snow. “Have your dog put its feet in cleanish snow for a couple of seconds,” she said. “That usually relieves the issue.”

Booties are also a popular option. After living in Colorado for some time, Michael Friedland wasn’t aware of the chemicals that kept hurting his Labrador/husky mix when he returned to New York. On a walk one day, the dog began to whine, and seeing what looked like a puddle of water nearby, Mr. Friedland dipped his dog’s paws in it. It turned out to be liquid chlorine. “That was even worse,” he said.

So, alongside his father, Gary — who faced similar woes with his Jack Russell terrier — Mr. Friedland started Pawz, a Brooklyn-based company that produces rubber dog booties, in 2005. “Everyone would ask my dad where he got them from,” he said. “Because everyone kept experiencing the same problem.”