A paw was a furry hand-like appendage possessed by some sentient and animal species. Canvines, a wolf-like humanoid species from the planet Canvine, had large, furry paws with long fingers and claws. The Devourer of Souls, a creature brought to life through the art of Toulour Martinique, also had large and hairy paws. (PROSE: Demontage)
Catkind/human child paws were dwarfed by the Tenth Doctor's hands. (TV: Gridlock)
Members of the feline Catkind species also had paws. Thomas Kincade Brannigan lamented that his children with the human Valerie Brannigan had lived their entire lives on the motorway and never felt the ground underneath their paws. (TV: Gridlock) Injured cat paws could be massaged to make them feel better. A bandage and genetic binding ointment permanently repaired such injuries. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript)
The word paw was sometimes colloquially used to refer to hands in a negative sense, as in Leela demanding the Commander on Pluto get his paws off her (TV: The Sun Makers) and Gita Chandra stating that she had heard what aliens such as the android Mister Dread did to humans when they got their "sticky paws" on them. (TV: The Vault of Secrets)
Behind the scenes[]
In the invalid comic story Doctor Who? 68, Mrs Block took her dog Fido to the Fifth Doctor whom she believed to be a vet because of a thorn in his paw. (NOTVALID: Doctor Who? 68)