My dog is makin bits of herself!

KingIsabella

Recently got a rescue dog whos settled in really well! Only thing is the ;ast week shes literally being scratching the daylights out of herself. Knawing all by her tail and legs, then scratching her chest head and neck with her hind legs. I brought her to the vet who gave her an antiinflammatory and anti biotics, I also put flea drops on her and put a collar on her a few days ago. On her chest you can see the red skin through her white coat.

It's gotten to the stage now that if shes not sleeping, walking or eating, shes biting and scratching herself to no end! I'm wondering are the antibiotics not agreeing with her or is she allergic to the new food? She doesn't get table scraps but she is walked in an area with lots of overbgrowth, rabbits, foxes and horses but i can't see anything crawling on her?

Could it be a skin condition or are there any common factors that aggravate dogs skin other than fleas or ticks?? Any help is apprweciated as im not too sure i can afford bringing her back to the vet until next payday!

él statutorio

It sounds like something like mange but I'd hope that the vet would've picked up on that. Could it maybe be some kind of allergy?

Millem

KingIsabella wrote: »

Recently got a rescue dog whos settled in really well! Only thing is the ;ast week shes literally being scratching the daylights out of herself. Knawing all by her tail and legs, then scratching her chest head and neck with her hind legs. I brought her to the vet who gave her an antiinflammatory and anti biotics, I also put flea drops on her and put a collar on her a few days ago. On her chest you can see the red skin through her white coat.

It's gotten to the stage now that if shes not sleeping, walking or eating, shes biting and scratching herself to no end! I'm wondering are the antibiotics not agreeing with her or is she allergic to the new food? She doesn't get table scraps but she is walked in an area with lots of overbgrowth, rabbits, foxes and horses but i can't see anything crawling on her?

Could it be a skin condition or are there any common factors that aggravate dogs skin other than fleas or ticks?? Any help is apprweciated as im not too sure i can afford bringing her back to the vet until next payday!

This happened to one of my dogs when we first got her, she was very run down and had been on poor quality food. Vet gave me some steroids and malaseb shampoo and put her on good food. Within a week she was perfect! no problems ever since. If it is mange they need to do skin scraping. Why don't you get in touch with rescue?

andreac

What food is she on?

KingIsabella

She had very dry skin when i got her but since ive started feeding her her coat is starting to shine. Maybe ill give her a good scrub with a medicated shampoo?? The antibiotics are up in two days and ill see ivf it ceases after that maybe?

Graces7

KingIsabella wrote: »

She had very dry skin when i got her but since ive started feeding her her coat is starting to shine. Maybe ill give her a good scrub with a medicated shampoo?? The antibiotics are up in two days and ill see ivf it ceases after that maybe?

Sounds like an awful lot of different chemicals in and on her?

And scrubbing will make the irritation worse; needs calming down not irritating more. Cooling....soothing..

Kurn

My dog had this all her Life (RIP) she was on steroids and special shampoo for the skin condition, which helped, I spent a fortune on tests, but the best I could do in the end was make her as comfortable as possible. The medicated shampoo (from vet) once a week was what I had to do, but it's never good to wash a dog that often (in my view) unless under medical advise to do so (which I was).

Hopefully for you the vet will have better news. best of luck

juniord

you could try apple cider vinegar mixed 50/50 with water and lightly spray the affected areas , organic ACV with the mother ie sediment is best

Millem

KingIsabella wrote: »

She had very dry skin when i got her but since ive started feeding her her coat is starting to shine. Maybe ill give her a good scrub with a medicated shampoo?? The antibiotics are up in two days and ill see ivf it ceases after that maybe?

The malaseb shampoo is amazing but you need to leave it on for 10 minutes (which can be tricky!) It is a prescription shampoo so you will need to get it from the vets.

KingIsabella

Thanks for all the replies lads! There are two spots under her collar on her chest that are particularly red and im hoping she doesnt break thre skin while im at work tomorrow! The vets usually call into where i work for coffee so ill say it to one of them tomorrow :P Sounds silly but i ended up rubbing ice on one of the bad spots last night just to stop her from tearin herself!!

Graces7

KingIsabella wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies lads! There are two spots under her collar on her chest that are particularly red and im hoping she doesnt break thre skin while im at work tomorrow! The vets usually call into where i work for coffee so ill say it to one of them tomorrow :P Sounds silly but i ended up rubbing ice on one of the bad spots last night just to stop her from tearin herself!!

Not silly; the right thing to do.
I bet it helped her too.

The cider vinegar will probably help too and there will be many other simple remedies. Chamomile in her drinking water will calm her if there is stress.

Rommie

What food are you giving her OP?

KingIsabella

I've got red mills star? I intended to pick up leader but made a mistake in the rush! Once every two weeks she gets a full boiled chicken and she got mince meat mixed with her nuts two days in a row earlier this week, but mostly it is just the nuts she gets.

These are the patches on her chest:


Untitled by KingIsabella


Untitled by KingIsabella


Untitled by KingIsabella


Untitled by KingIsabella

Rommie

My advice is get her off the star full stop and if you can, go straight to a full raw diet, even just for a week or so before going back to dry food. It should help build up her immunity, plus you've a better chance of figuring out if she's allergic to an ingredient in it when you're making up her food yourself. If you don't want to go that route, get her onto a better dry food, preferably a sensitive one with either lamb or salmon as the main meat source, and at least 20% meat meal

dfoy

Had a dog with similar redness look like hives under the skin it turned out it was where she was walking through stingers and nettles would she walk through the likes of this

KingIsabella

dfoy wrote: »

Had a dog with similar redness look like hives under the skin it turned out it was where she was walking through stingers and nettles would she walk through the likes of this

Actually.....where I walk her it's up murphys rock if anyone knows it. Lots and lots of nettles and thornbushes! I'll try the raw diet for a few days and keep her on a different walk and see if she gets any better!! Sound for all the advice lads and lasses! I'm sure she appreciates it even if she doesn't know it yet

Graces7

KingIsabella wrote: »

Actually.....where I walk her it's up murphys rock if anyone knows it. Lots and lots of nettles and thornbushes! I'll try the raw diet for a few days and keep her on a different walk and see if she gets any better!! Sound for all the advice lads and lasses! I'm sure she appreciates it even if she doesn't know it yet

Raw chicken bones and all; not boiled...

KingIsabella

Graces7 wrote: »

KingIsabella wrote: »

Actually.....where I walk her it's up murphys rock if anyone knows it. Lots and lots of nettles and thornbushes! I'll try the raw diet for a few days and keep her on a different walk and see if she gets any better!! Sound for all the advice lads and lasses! I'm sure she appreciates it even if she doesn't know it yet

Raw chicken bones and all; not boiled...

Gonna have to google this raw diet business!

The Sweeper

A change in food is mostly likely to have the most immediate effect, tbh. Stop feeding what you're feeding and try her on boiled chicken and rice for three days just to clear her system. Then I'd start her on a raw diet but make sure you do the research so you balance the diet properly.

Still, to be systematic:

Take the flea collar off her. Check in the fur behind her ears for flea dirt - black specks close to the skin, which if you can gather them and press them on a damp tissue will blot red with old blood. Alternatively, put her standing on a couple of sheets of white paper and give her a good wooling so she drops any skin flakes etc - flea dirt will drop too and you can see the tiny black specks and again press them with damp tissue.

If no fleas, the next problem could be topical. That ccollar looks very tight on her, OP - her neck is bulging over it in your pictures. Loosen the collar and remove that loose ring where an ID tag would hang (given you've no ID tag on it), in case the metal is irritating her.

If you use particular washing powder or softener on her bedding etc. stop using it. Hot wash her bedding but don't use any softeners or other remaining chemicals.

You can change her walking route too but the problem with doing all these together is if she stops scratching you won't know which one was the problem (but my money's on the food).

KingIsabella

The Sweeper wrote: »

A change in food is mostly likely to have the most immediate effect, tbh. Stop feeding what you're feeding and try her on boiled chicken and rice for three days just to clear her system. Then I'd start her on a raw diet but make sure you do the research so you balance the diet properly.

Still, to be systematic:

Take the flea collar off her. Check in the fur behind her ears for flea dirt - black specks close to the skin, which if you can gather them and press them on a damp tissue will blot red with old blood. Alternatively, put her standing on a couple of sheets of white paper and give her a good wooling so she drops any skin flakes etc - flea dirt will drop too and you can see the tiny black specks and again press them with damp tissue.

If no fleas, the next problem could be topical. That ccollar looks very tight on her, OP - her neck is bulging over it in your pictures. Loosen the collar and remove that loose ring where an ID tag would hang (given you've no ID tag on it), in case the metal is irritating her.

If you use particular washing powder or softener on her bedding etc. stop using it. Hot wash her bedding but don't use any softeners or other remaining chemicals.

You can change her walking route too but the problem with doing all these together is if she stops scratching you won't know which one was the problem (but my money's on the food).

Thank you! The food and walk will be the first too be changed! The flea collar came off either by her yearing it while scratching or when she was playing rough with a mates dog last night.. Same with the chip tag!I can fit two fingers and a thumb inside her collar, I would've thought this would be too loose?


I'll change her food from the morning and hope for the best!! Sound lads!

The Sweeper

Collar could just be the pics in fairness.

maggiepip

You should try Dermacton - its fantastic - I was able to take my dog off steroids (seems to be the first thing the most vets use with skin problems - unfortunately) by using the Dermacton spray and also salmon oil in his food.
http://www.aromesse.com/skin-problem/petnat-dermactonsp-itchy-skin.html

bannermaf

The general rule of thumb for collars, is that you should be able to slip four fingers in between the collar and her neck.

I would treat her with Advocate to eliminate the possility of flea or mite allergies.

If you do any online ordering, I've recently been using DermOpt here on one dog with Demodectic Mange and anotehr dog with very bad skin and it has worked wonders. It has the same anti-bacterial & anti-fungal properties as Malaseb, but it is way cheaper and you don't need a perscription.

Good luck!

deman

We had a young pup years ago that did the exact same thing. We tried everything. The vet was completely baffled. In the end we had to put her to sleep as she was biting down to the bone in her paws. The vet put it down to some chemical imbalance in the brain.

KingIsabella

Cheers for all the replies!! I talked to one of the vet girls and she recommended barf? Wont have time to research it properly until after work so in the mean time ive picked up a lash of chicken thighs and mince meat...is this all of to feed or raw or will i boil it up??

Dublin21

Have you read into BARF??

It stands for Bones And Raw Food .. So i wouldn't be boiling anything!

However as The Sweeper said you really need to read up on this to ensure you get the balance right.. you could end up doing more damage than good if you don't.

I have my kitten 3 weeks now and in that time i have been researching the RAW diet and still haven't switched to full Raw as i haven't researched enough!

Until you do i would try find a good quality dog food but supplement it with raw...

Renno123

It could be a food allergy., I would suggest talking to your vet about foods such as Burns etc..
it could be an allergy to anything tbh..
best seeing a vet

KingIsabella

Just gave her two raw chicken thighs bones included as a start! I have the next six days off anyway so i can research the raw diet properly and keep an eye on her scratching!! Cheers for all the advice lads!

tazwaz

at this time of year it could be them little mites called bloodsuckers, dont know their real name. happened my dog last summer, got in by his paws and when he scratched his ears, neck etc he spread them around. he ended up on steroids and they cleared up. i havent seen many of them around this summer cause of the weather though

DBB

tazwaz wrote: »

at this time of year it could be them little mites called bloodsuckers, dont know their real name. happened my dog last summer, got in by his paws and when he scratched his ears, neck etc he spread them around. he ended up on steroids and they cleared up. i havent seen many of them around this summer cause of the weather though

That'd be harvest mites, which are related to, but not the same thing as the little red mites you see crawling around on warm rocks, often called bloodsuckers. It is very difficult to see harvest mites on dark-haired dogs. especially if they're dark-haired around their feet, and although thuis weather may curtail the little crawlies to some extent, I would not be relying on weather to prevent infestation.

Just to clarify, the steroids prescribed by your vet did not clear up your dog's mite infestation, they calmed down his allergic response to them.
Steroids are all-too-quickly prescribed for dogs with itchy skin, but it is really important to understand that steroids do NOT cure itchy skin, they simply stop the itch... in other words, they are a bandage over a wound.
Steroids need to be given with extreme caution, the dog must be weaned down off them very slowly, as stopping them too suddenly can pretty much stop the adrenal glands from working, which causes serious health complications in the longer term.

OP, I'm a great advocate of the BARF diet, and have had some pretty amazing successes here with severely itchy-skinned dogs. However, as other poster have, I'd urge caution before leaping in too quickly without getting this properly diagosed via allergy tests and skin scrapes. For starters, there is a possibility that your dog is allergic to chicken! It is one of the most common allergens in dog's diets these days. So, whilst giving raw chicken bones etc is great, you've got to be sure that your dog is not allergic to it.

Dogsfirst on this site has a nifty diet designed for dogs just like yours: it is designed to detoxify, to calm irritated skin and intestines, to balance the immune system, and critically for my money, to prevent the dog being exposed again and again to one of the biggest allergens of all: storage mites. Which live in DRY dog food. All dry dog food, no matter what you pay for it. So, give him a shout, he might be able to help you.
In the meantime, were I you, until I learned more about this whole BARF thing, I'd go out and buy your dog some Nature Diet dog food (or equivalent: this is a commercially prepared "wet" diet which is pretty nicely balanced and, critically, contains no damn storage mites) This will tide you over until you've got to grips with what you need to do diet-wise.

Good luck with your poor dog: vets can be pretty poor on skin issues because they're hard to diagnose. That said, I'm kinda impressed by the vet nurse pointing you in the direction of BARF!

Millem

maggiepip wrote: »

You should try Dermacton - its fantastic - I was able to take my dog off steroids (seems to be the first thing the most vets use with skin problems - unfortunately) by using the Dermacton spray and also salmon oil in his food.
http://www.aromesse.com/skin-problem/petnat-dermactonsp-itchy-skin.html

Maggiepie that dermaction sounds brilliant, can you get it from vet or is it only available online?