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Dog with Skin Allergies
Hello everyone! I am new to this board but was wondering if anyone has experience with a dog with skin allergies? My poor little 11 week old puppy scratches and gnaws all of the time. He doesn?t have fleas and the breeder told me that his mother has environmental skin allergies. He told me that he has taken her to several vets and even a doggie dermatologist but nothing has really helped her. I am hoping to have a different outcome for my baby. He has a vet appointment today but any additional info will help.
FYI?On advice of the breeder, I have given him ? of a Benadryl pill at night for a week (which doesn?t do much but make him drowsy). I have washed him several times with Septiderm-V Antiseptic Skin Care Bath Grooming Shampoo (which helps a little) and I changed his food to Blue Buffalo Chicken and Brown Rice. The next bag I will try the Lamb and Oatmeal if they think it will make a difference.
Thanks! Any advice is appreciated.
Re: Dog with Skin Allergies
Sorry to be harsh, but he has no business breeding a dog who has such severe allergies. That is one of the primary things they should be screening out, not replicating. Sounds like this breeder is not reputable at all. It is terrifying to me that an 11 WEEK old puppy would have allergies, we were told they normally onset at 2 years and get progressively worse through adulthood. I cannot imagine how sick that puppy will be as it gets older.
There is an allergy section in the FAQ. We followed that using trial and error. We have our dog on a very limited ingredient dog food, he takes zyrtec every day (we confirmed dose with our vet), we only use free and clear shampoo, we don't use cleaning chemicals in the house, etc. etc. All of his treats have to be a novel protein. It hasn't been easy, but he is much happier and healthier now. Good luck.
And I'll warn you that we have spent thousands on vet visits over the past two years getting things under control and dealing with some weird complications. It is scary and sad somedays and frustrating, because it can take weeks for certain foods or environmental allergens to have an affect. You should keep a diary of where she plays, what she eats every day and what symptoms she has to try and connect cause and effect of potential allergens.
Ditto about the breeder.
But beyond that, our first corgi had horrible allergies. We found great luck with lamb based food and have continued to feed it to our other two corgis.
Additionally, there was a medicated shampoo we got from our vet. It is made by Virbac and called "Calming cream"
It is a really scary bright blue color, but contains medicine to sooth the skin. We preferred that to giving medication, and our vet warned that dogs with bad allergies will gradually build up a tolerance to otc drugs like benedryl. Between that and the food, she was a lot better.
Hope that helps.
I don't know anything about actually dealing with allergies, but I would think if the "breeder" said his mama dog has severe environmental allergies, food switches wouldn't help that? Would they?
I mean, your pup could have BOTH (shudder), in which case ruling out the allergy-inducing food would be a good route to go, but if the allergies are environmental, I'd think a prescription and lots of wiping down after going outside (like with baby wipes after rolling around in grass/dirt/sand/leaves/etc), could help cut down on the irritants.
B/w 1/8: betas 17,345, progesterone 25.6
I have two thoughts on this. 1) I doubt the breeder knows what he's talking about re. what his dog's allergies are. If he's disreputable enough to be breeding her, how informed can he be re. allergens and their causes? 2) A dog that young probably isn't outside much (possible parvo exposure, not old enough to be fully vaccinated) so how many environmental allergens can it be exposed to? But, food allergies are really uncommon. It might be good to go ahead and pay for allergy testing for the puppy and look into allergy shots. Lots of things don't show up, but this is obviously a severe case and you'll probably have to do it at some point anyway.
If it's food allergies the first step is cutting out food with grain. Can puppies eat grain free food? The second step is switching to a novel protein, in which case you would want to cut out chicken, beef, lamb. I believe food allergies develop over time so it would be weird to have a puppy that age who has food allergies that severe. We've pretty much determined that our dog is allergic to dust, which sounds like a distinct possibility in the OP's case.
I think the OP needs to find a veterinary allergist ASAP because this is clearly going to be a life long road and require some substantial intervention to keep the puppy functional. It's second nature to us now, but we have to work to manage our dog's environment basically all the time to keep his allergies at bay and it requires a fair amount of work.