Itchy Dog - Ideas/help please??

Optimist

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I have 3 Jack Russells and a Spaniel. All 4 are quite itchy, but one particularly so - she scratches and chews the hair from a patch above her tail. They are regularly treated for fleas - the JR's are mainly white and short coated and have never found a flea on any one of them - should be easy to spot. Have taken the worst one to the vet, he confirmed it isn't fleas - gave her an anti histimine (sp!) injection, shrugged his shoulders, said it could be anything, probably an allergic reaction to something and cheerfully relieved me of £38. Oh joy!! I think its unlikely that all 4 are allergic to the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent. Could it be some sort of mites?? Skin looks perfectly normal where she chews out the hair.

I would be really grateful if you enormously knowledgeable peeps could apply your minds to this. Can't afford to part with any more cash to be told the bleeding obvious!!
 
My lab is the same and so far we have seen much improvement with changing his feed to skinners hypoallergenic. Hes also got better as the weather has changed so we are narrowing it down. But i think if i was you i would start wirth the food they are on
 
I'm having a similar problem with Jess. (collie x) So far I have been to the vets 4 times and we have not found the causeof the itching. She too has been treated for fleas (not hat she has any--the vet checked as well as myself) and mange (she likes to roll in fox poo)
She has had Advantage applied and is on Skinners hypoallergenic food.
There is no rash or anything to be seen.
She did lose weight initially but I have increased her food and she has regained it now.
is this the same as your dog?
I'd love to know what it is as both the vet and I are perplexed and I too and getting short on pennies with no obvious result.
My other 2 dogs are not affected at all.
 
Hi,

My dog had an itchy problem and injections just didn't help. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I tried Dermacton cream and spray from aromesse (they do a range for horses as well) and it's worked wonders. She still has a nibble but it's more out of habit. Go to www.aromesse.com

It's very reasonably priced and the customer services people answer any questions you may have.

Good luck!
 
With my boy I decided to:

Switch food to hypoallergenic, shampoo at least once, pref twice with Malaseb, aloe vera on itchy bits, natural yoghurt in food, antihistamine tabs in summer (rule out an allergy to pollen and household products and carpets)

And exercise the legs off them! Bored dogs are more likely to worry at themselves than tired ones.

Your vet is right in a way, you need a full set of blood tests to determine an allergy and what it is to!

My fella has an atopy skin infection triggered by a pollen allergy.

However like you say, strange that all four of them are itchy!
 
I've just taken my sheltie x jrt to the vets for the same thing and it was her anal glands being full. Since then no more scratching.I'm not saying this may the answer for yours but I'm just relieved to get to the bottom of it ---- excuse the pun
grin.gif
 
If all four are affected I would look first to diet, what are you feeding, I'll wager it has wheat in it.

All my dogs have been rescued, all go straight onto raw and all bar one experienced lengthy detox when comming off of poor quality dry feeds containing wheat.

Isn't it strange that most of us are now avoiding grain in our horses diets, there are loads of feed products that are low grain for all levels of work for horses, we embrace this for our herbivores but happily carry on feeding the stuff to our Carnivores, go figure!
 
Thank you all - certainly you have given me food for thought. Literally, I will try changing food first. Zoobie, have had anal glands checked and whilst not perfect, shouldn't have caused the problem - especially not in all 4.
 
[ QUOTE ]
If all four are affected I would look first to diet, what are you feeding, I'll wager it has wheat in it.

All my dogs have been rescued, all go straight onto raw and all bar one experienced lengthy detox when comming off of poor quality dry feeds containing wheat.

Isn't it strange that most of us are now avoiding grain in our horses diets, there are loads of feed products that are low grain for all levels of work for horses, we embrace this for our herbivores but happily carry on feeding the stuff to our Carnivores, go figure!

[/ QUOTE ]

Had this problem with my Lab and noticed dramtatic, and immediate, improvement when we swtiched her to a raw food diet. I'm certain it was the wheat!
 
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