Bloody back claws?

I was looking more closely at Chowder's back paws today and noticed yet again that his two middle claws look brown on the underneath side. When I first got him I thought he had some kind of dust buildup of something and he wasn't grooming since he wouldn't let me touch him and I could never see clearly.

Now that I've had him longer and he's more comfortable with me, I see him groom all the time and he licks/chews between all of his toes to clean them. I now think it may be dried blood. It's on about 2 claws per foot.

He doesn't seem to be in pain when I touch it. Could this be from litter? I've never heard of anything like this and am hoping it's just dirt and I'm crazy!

It could just be an accumulation of dead skin. I know he's chomping on those claws, but maybe it's just difficult for him to get it off? And it's not like the front claws that are cleaned by scratching.

What about taking a piece of gauze and using hydrogen peroxide to see if you can just clean it off? With the peroxide, if it's just dead accumulated skin, it should come off pretty easily. :nod:

It's also possible that he had some kind of trauma to that paw in the past and he's got permanent bruising on those 2 toes.  My Hannah has something like that on one of her paws.  We talked to the vet about it and she said that the trauma could've caused that.  The other possibility is a build up of litter.  Sounds strange, but it does happen.  My vet had to give Hannah a mini-pedi the last time she was in for her check up.