Itchy dog

[Amyp25]

Hi I was wondering if anyone would have any advise I have a 12yr old jack Russell who has suffered from itch skin his whole life we put it down to the environment which causes his allergies he is always at the vet and gets prescribed steroids which help short term.. has anyone had any experience with dog allergies and what did you give your dog?

 

thanks amy

[_PL_]

Food allergy often goes undiagnosed. The itch primarily presents around the mouth/chin, toes, groin and ears (often rpt infections). I'd try a 6 week exclusion diet of Prime 100 roo and potato.

 

I did have a dog who nothing worked for (and you can't use steroids constantly) and he did well on cyclosporin but unfortunately passed away before Apoquel came out which has worked really well on itchy foster dogs.

[asal]

totally depends on the cause of the itch and sometimes that can be really hard to find out.

 

case one, friends lab, he was terrible, coat falling out, sore skin the vets anti allergy injections were working less and less and finally he was put down, she also had a purebred chihuahua girl who she had put in pup to my dog. so I got one pup for the service and so liked two of them I bought the other, by the time I picked them up and had turned 12 weeks I noticed were loving fur on their feet and skin beginning to redden.  took them to sydney uni to discover they had mange, Sarcoptic mange  is contagious, and most dogs catch the disease via direct contact with an infected individual.  the kind of mange foxes get. Chihuahua's cant have standard mange washes, it kills them so the vet put them on low dose ivermectin sheep drench not sure what was added to make it very low dose but they had a few drops on the tongue every day and it was cured. Once cured it never returned.

 

Their mum also began losing coat and I told her Cobbity's diagnosis and sure enough mum had it too... with hinsight she had probably caught it from the poor Lab her vet had never diagnosed correctly. as he was notorious for digging up fox dens. Was pretty upset to realise because her vet had never looked past allergy, he might have been saved so much suffering and saved if he had been treated for mange instead.

 

case two. Cavalier boy, skin on tummy and body began to redden and get itchy then hair falling out after he had his second vaccination, vet suspected lowered immune system was causing  Demodectic Mange — overgrowth of mites, Demodex sp., that are normally found in small numbers in a dog's skin.

he too was put on low dose Ivermectin and cleared up in no time, except once he seem cured it came back as soon as the dosage was stopped.

Vet put him back on it and cleared up again, after a year or so his owner stopped giving it to him when they moved and it returned in a few months,  in his case he had be be on low dose ivermectin for the rest of his life or it came back.  His immune system never normalised after the vaccinations he received for parvo and distemper. He lived a long and happy life making it to 16, long as he had his dosage, so long term it had no deleterious effect and sure make certain he never caught heartworm either

 

might be worth asking about ?

 

In both cases it looked  similar, yet very different cause. 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by asal

[PossumCorner]

Asal that's interesting that a vet went straight to Ivermectin for mange.  I thought it would have been off-label for dogs, not sure though.  It is off-label for poultry, and vets are not allowed to recommend it or even advise on dosage.  They will decant some for chook people who are known clients/patients.  And it works brilliantly for mites and internal worms. 

 

When the fox got into neighbour's house and all of our dogs caught mange (hers and visitors alike) vet went straight to Advocate and that worked very fast and mange didn't return.  No mention of Ivermectin, and this is a sheep vet as well as small animal specialist.  (Neither did the fox, we caught and boxed it in the house and he was put to sleep humanely, poor little bugger was in a terrible way).

 

Good luck Amyp25, we had to go the cortisone way with one dog about 12 years ago, he seemed to 'grow out of it' rather than the various treatments and diet being the whole answer.  Rheneas is still with us at 16 with no skin probs, just old doggie probs - still feed him kangaroo-based to be on the safe side but have never ever got comfortable about benefitting from the killing of wildlife.

[asal]

it was over 20 years ago, maybe 30, so dont think advocate was on the market, Although I doubt it would have worked for the Cavalier with the low immune system.

 

apparently in the case of chihuahua's its quite difficult to treat without killing the dog they said and they were fine on the low dose .  as was the Cavi