We recently moved from living in the East, Virginia to the Ozarks in Arkansas. We have 5 dogs, ranging from our huge livestock guard dog who is Meramma/Komondor (sp?), mini dachy, black lab and Heinz 57. After we moved here I took my black lab, Ebony to the vet for a check up, she is 12 yrs old. I mentioned to him at the time i noticed she was itching and wondered why. I expalined we had used Frontline for fleas and ticks a few weeks earlier before we moved. Then i also mentioned that when we moved from western NY to VA 8 yrs ago she was also itching badly at the time that summer. I recall taking her to the vet and he gave her some pills for itching. They helped a great deal, that vet figured she was allergic to her fleas or the climate change. Ebony has been fine since til we moved here.

I asked the new vet here, he said he was giving her a cortisone shot for her arthritis and that it would help with the itching as well. Well.. it didn't. i called him 2 weeks ago and he suggested trying vitamin E tabs, so we got them. No help, she is still itching. meantime i am giving her batchs in flea shampoos, then tried oatmeal shampoo, then tried this special shampoo from jJffers along with the spray called Francodex. Still no relief. She is now loosing her hair and I feel so bad for her. In between shampoos i have tried rubbing mayonaise in, spraying with apple cider vinegar, and even tried a remedy for chiggers, rubbing butter with salt in it on the areas.

I called the vet today, guess what? he is out of town. great! so, now i need a new vet but in the meantime i am helpless as i watch her itch. Does anyone have any ideas or remedies? oh, he ruled mange out. But..... i did notice our guard dog who is wooley is itching now too.

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. I can't get her in to the other vet til next week. Thanks.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 26, 2001

Answers

MY mother has a black lab,,older dog,, she gives her brewers yeast,, like 10 tablets/pills (whatever they are) twice a day. They started because of her itching,, might be worth a shot. The dog thinks its candy,, so you dont have to force feed it

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), July 26, 2001.

Could be allergy to vegetation - try bathing her, then shutting her up for a while, and see if the itching eases off. Is there any particularly common plant, low-growing, that she hasn't been exposed to before? Is there a place where she likes to lie down in vegetation, or plants along a fenceline she follows? One plant which is notorious for causing allergies in dogs in Australia is called Wandering Jew. It is a variety of Tradescantia, is native to the Americas, and is sometimes used as an ornamental (although it grows like a creeping weed).

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 26, 2001.

Just a thought but she sounds like maybe her Thyroid is off. This will take a blood test to determine and it is easy to treat with medication. Little bitty pills. Also you might have to have some skin scrapings taken by the vet and look into the presence of mange mites. There is more than one species and the Vet can tell with a microscope. Hope this helps. I know it makes you feel helpless when your dog is miserable and you want to help. Good Luck with this,will you let us know what happens? :-)

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), July 26, 2001.

Hi Bernice If the itching is in specific areas, rather than just generalized itching, it could be what they call "hot spots". My collies had problems with these nearly every summer in OK and there was an overthecounter liquid that worked real well. Sorry, I can't remember the name of it; but someone else might - without it, the itching and biting resulted in hair loss and sometimes an open sore. Hope you find the answer to this prob. soon. Cynthia

-- Cynthia (farmsteader@gvtel.com), July 26, 2001.

Our dog used to itch a lot on her feet. The vet said she had a flea allergy. He said to give her Benadryl to help the itching until the flea medicine kicked in. She is about 60 lbs and we were told that she could have up to 2 tablets twice a day. This will also make your dog sleepy. Hope this helps!

-- Cindy in NY (cjpopeck@worldnet.att.net), July 26, 2001.

Hi Bernice - could it be possible that the Frontline you used was no good? I have one dog that has severe reactions to even one flea bite. Scratches and bites herself raw. She also has other skin allergies that are controlled simply by adding fish oil to her diet. Have you changed food since you moved? Where are the dogs scratching themselves?

-- Dianne (willow@config.com), July 26, 2001.

Sounds like she has some allergys , bendryl will help .I would also suggest some lamb or chicken dog food .One that doesnt contain beef or corn .Yeast and vit e will help .Also linatone oil .

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), July 26, 2001.

Hi Bernice, I experienced a double dog itch/hair loss nightmare last year. Turned out, the beagle was allergic to the frontline...switched to advantage and it cleared most amazingly. On the other hand, the terrier had a bacterial skin infection (unknown origin) and was on keflex for 6 weeks. It was caught early enough that it only affected her first skin layer (we were peeling off her hair...gross!) and the vet had us use coal tar shampoo every other week (not too often) to help eliminate the odor amd soothe the itch. Hope your situation turns into an easy solution.

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), July 27, 2001.

My dog had a very bad itch problem last year, that only got worse when I bathed her with flea shampoo!!!! Her hair all fell out on her backside!!!!! very ugly!!!! This year I started giving her 2 capsules a day of cod liver oil, then I dropped it to 1 a day after awhile. she is doing beautiflly. You can find these even at the walmart ( or "wally world" as we call it). I have opened the capsules and poured it on the food, and I have also just put the capsule in with the food, they seem to like it. Anyway it's worth a try. The Benedryl will help with the itch, until you find the solution. It's miserable to watch them suffer. Susan

-- Susan n' Emily, in Tn (animalcrackers55@hotmail.com), July 27, 2001.

Thanks to everyone who replied so far, I appreciate all you responses. With the benedryl... how much should i give her? I got to thinking.... it maybe that the Frontline is the culprit, would explain all the itching with her and the guard dog. We usually used the Advantage, but our vet back in vA didn't ahve any and gave the Frontline. I applied it on them in early June, about a month after we moved here.

another thing I thought about too was the mention of allergies to grass/weeds. I noticed that every time I give her a bath, she runs out the door and rolls on the lawn and does a belly crawl, which is where she is itching the most. The lawn is mostly rocks, grow lots here in AR, but has a little grass. And, someone forgot to tell her she is a lab abd is supposed to LIKE water, she hates it, always has.

Thanks, will try the benedryl and the oil capsules and hopefully that will help until Tuesday when she sees the vet.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 27, 2001.

Bernice - How much does your dog weigh? I would use an amount based on what our vet told us (60 lb dog can have up to 2 tablets twice a day). If there's a question, I would use the lower dose and see if it does the trick. Our dog has to take a pill (PPL)everyday because of kidney failure. She hates to take pills so I put peanut butter on a cracker, add the pill, and top it off with more peanut butter. She likes the taste plus the peanut butter sticks to the roof of her mouth and she can't spit out the pill!

-- Cindy in NY (cjpopeck@worldnet.att.net), July 27, 2001.

Hi Bernice: many good suggestions here.

Here's my take on it: your dog is having these "itching" problems in summer. Your dog is losing hair in spots. This indicates a weather- related possibly systemic problem is going on -- not necessarily a parasite problem. Your best bet is to BEGIN treating this conservatively -- don't bring out the big guns of benadryl/cortisone/heavy duty pesticides until you have eliminated all the little guns as tools first.

Start with increasing your dog's dietary fats -- for Labs and other working dogs, we often don't feed enough to keep the dog's skin in tip-top health. Someone suggested cod liver oil, and that's great...it also has Vitamins A & D which benefit the skin and the dog's arthritic joints. But any oil will do, even leftover cooking grease or bacon fat. Start with a tablespoon in the dog's food every day.

If you also add a tablespoon of brewer's yeast (10 pill's worth), which contains the B-complex vitamins, you'll improve a lot of the dog's other symptoms -- it'll help calm the dog in general, improve its mood, and help with skin problems.

If you begin using oil and brewer's yeast TODAY, you should begin to see the symptoms decrease within three days (or sooner). This is the least expensive place to start, and the least-invasive and least- toxic place to begin treatment.

Please let us know what happens with your pet!

-- Anita Evangelista (ale368s@smsu.edu), July 27, 2001.

If all suggestions fail, you may want to have a vet pull a blood sample and send it in for serum analysis to find out what your dog may be allergic to. A general screen of those grasses trees and molds likely to be the culprits will probably run about a hundred dollars, but once you know the problem it is possible then to either remove the stimulus and/or desensitize with a series of shots. Better than the last trip down a long road for a miserable animal that is digging itself to pieces. Just a thought.

-- Sandra Nelson (Magin@starband.net), July 27, 2001.

Has your dog been vaccinated recently, for anything? Vaccinosis is a possibility, particularly if a number of vaccines were given at the same time.

I suggest you get a book titled THE NATURE OF ANIMAL HEALING by Martin Goldstein, DVM. So many (most) treatments are going after the symptoms, not the cause, of a problem.

-- Joy F [in So. Wisconsin] (CatFlunky@excite.com), July 27, 2001.

First thing you need is a diagnosis.The first step is determine where the bare spots are from scratching.If it is in front of the tail ;think flea allergy,tips of ears,sarcoptic mange,around eyes demodectic mange ,belly contact dermatitis,etc. Keith Etheridge DVM

-- Keith Etheridge DVM (grandpa@chipsnet.com), July 28, 2001.

My lab used to get the dry skin, itchy, would chew raw spots on his back. I got some good dog vitamins with omega fatty acids in them, and brewer's yeast, and it's amazing the difference. My dog is allergic to fleas, but he also seems to have contact dermatitis from laying in the grass. Go figure.

-- Joan Murray (alandjoan@juno.com), July 30, 2001.

Forgive my spelling in advance please .Linatone has linalaic acid in it , which is the key essicental to healthy skin and coat .At last I knew Nutro max brand dog food had the highest levels in it .No matter what the cause you need to get the body in top condition .Lots of dogs have problems with corn and beef , so that is why I suggested and all lamb or chicken and rice diet .Hope all is getting better

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), July 30, 2001.

I agree with whomever said 'Hot Spots'. However, I have a very cheap way to get rid of it. Used car oil. Just coat the spots where she is losing hair with the oil THICKLY. I used to have a black chow that got it every year---the old did the job everytime also. Please don't waste lots of money on crap that's not going to work--this dog lived to be 15 years old so it must have been right.

-- (stephanie.wilkerson@experian.com), August 02, 2001.

My dog has allergies to fleas. I give him people antihistamine if it gets bad.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), August 02, 2001.

I had the same problem with my dogs right after I decided to try to save a few dollars by feeding them Kal Kan dog food. After a few days of switching back to their normal dog food the itching subsided. The following websites explain food allergies.

http://www.roen.com/990913.html

http://www.geocities.com/petsfood/eat.html

-- Cheri (crewsaders@aol.com), August 26, 2001.

Used car oil is carcinogenic. I would not expose myself or my animals to it.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), August 26, 2001.