Two questions about paws:
1) Why do male dogs do a little dance, scrabbling the ground with sometimes all four and sometimes just rear paws, the moment they finish defecating ? I've seen a bitches do something like this after urinating this but it seems predominantly a male practice.
2)Do dogs have any sweat glands in their feet ? I know they have none in the skin generally. If so it may explain my poodle bitch, on a hot day, carefully and deliberately putting her front paws in her ( very large ) water bowl for some seconds and then walking off.She usually puts just the two in and then stands in it, just occasionally she puts all four in.Or is there some other explanation ? She's only 15 weeks but it doesn't seem playful or investigative, being solemnly repeated. She does drink too sometimes but this is before getting in, if it's done at all.

Short answer, Fred - I don't really know.

My just-3-yr-old golden non-retriever is a male castrated at six months who has hip dysplasia and some awkwardness and discomfort round his hips. He rarely cocks his leg to urinate, and doesn't do the dog thing of leaving small messages on every post. Instead he behaves more like a bitch, and squats to do one large puddle, and that's it. The only time he scrabbles is when he has urinated in "his" own garden. I assume it's to hide the scent when it's not needed to proclaim his territory.

He doesn't scrabble after defecating either in the garden or outside, but the behaviour can only be an instinctive desire to bury the mess and thereby conceal the scent, perhaps a good idea when the wolf pack was out hunting.

My dog will also scrabble his water bowl in hot weather (and not drink from it after), but he spreads the water round the floor and lies in the damp. I have a kiddies' paddling pool which I put out for him on hot days. Again he will scrabble at the floor of that, but will not sit or lie in the water unless I make him. As with your dog, he mainly does this with his front paws. I think he simply likes the first coolness!

I was always told that when dogs do the scratching thing that it's because they are making sure they are leaving their scent for other dogs to smell and know that that is their territory. As far as sweat glands in the paws, I think and I'm not sure but I think I read somewhere that they do have sweat glands in their feet. It seems like it was on a qestionairre on Animal Planet to see how much you know about dogs. I always thought they didn't have sweat glands that when they panted that's the only way they had of cooling off.

The ONLY way a dog can sweat is thru his mouth...
Seems to me that they have -not sweat - but oil glands in their paws to help mark their territory..
When a dog stretches out his body, he is doing that for the same reason we humans do it....It feels good.....In the dog and cat world, this is a very common thing to see, especially after they wake up...

I have a Poodle, mini, choc brown, and she is quite the dog.. Anyway, the only time she scratches her feet like that, is after her B-A-T-H, ( I had to spell it because if she hears the word she tries to hide). She'll wipe all four paws on the carpet- just like a bull ready to charge, then..off she goes, for at least 10 minutes, racing in figure 8 circles through the house and yard, as fast as she can, then plops down, all out of breath. Cracks me up! She also snorts, I think she does it as if to say, 'come on, lets play'. She's very funny. I love her to pieces.