Dermatitis in dog

WhiteWalls

My dog has now had two rounds of treatment for dermatitis and has come back again. Vet said its now a matter of changing his diet and hoping that works..

Anybody any experience of this?

cocker5

WhiteWalls wrote: »

My dog has now had two rounds of treatment for dermatitis and has come back again. Vet said its now a matter of changing his diet and hoping that works..

Anybody any experience of this?

What type of dog do you have OP?

lots of dogs can suffer from skin issues - its can be diet related, grass mites, allergic reaction to shampoo etc..

what food is your dog currently on? Brand etc

aonb

as cocker5 said, skin issues are SO common in dogs, and so hard to pinpoint the cause. Food is probably the first place to start, but cut out any chemicals that you might be using immediately too - shampoos, detergents to wash his bedding etc... Hopefully it wont be hard to pinpoint whats causing it - remember if changing the food, do it gradually so as not to upset his tummy, and it will take several weeks on a new food to see a difference.

DBB

What did the treatment consist of op?

WhiteWalls

She has been given tablets, similar to the last ones he was on but just for longer.. She was also given an injection. Hopefully it works this time.

Thanks for the responses

cocker5

usually skin conditions require a medicated wash also not just tablets OP. id ask your vet about this?

also what brand of feed are you feeding your dog?
changing to a grain free diet would certainly help.

WhiteWalls

The vet never mentioned a wash but gave her a tablet for ticks and lice incase.

She eats bonio's and tinned food, either pedigree or brandy.. she is a small cross terrier.. thanks for your advice

cocker5

WhiteWalls wrote: »

The vet never mentioned a wash but gave her a tablet for ticks and lice incase.

She eats bonio's and tinned food, either pedigree or brandy.. she is a small cross terrier.. thanks for your advice

Just on the food OP (honestly not trying to be critical) but Pedigree and brandy are two of the worse food you can feed your dog. (most supermarket dog food) Very low quality, no nutritional value - full of water and little else.

Unless your buying high quality tinned food id stay away from the tinned food (its generall muck unless a very good brand) a good complete food should help her alot.

What is your budget and maybe we can recommend good food within your budget?

WhiteWalls

What would be a good complete food? No particular budget in place, suggestions welcome.

cocker5

WhiteWalls wrote: »

What would be a good complete food? No particular budget in place, suggestions welcome.

There is a myth that good food is more expensive than poorer food when in fact its actually ends up roughly similar in price- as with a higher quality food you will give the dog a lesser amount.

Just to be aware OP when moving your dog over from tinned to dry complete do it over a period of a week… a little tinned food less per day with the nuts mixed in and reduce over a week – just to ensure she doesn’t get an upset tummy etc.
Also just note most dogs LOVE tinned food it’s like kids loving McDonalds so she may refuse to eat it for a few days but trust me when she hungry enough she will eat and over a period of a month you should see a big improvement…

I feed my guy taste of the wild dried food – its grain free – good quality:

http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/taste_of_the_wild

I buy the 13.5 kg bag and its lasts me months (but my guy is a cocker) so I’d say it will last your dog less time. It may appear expensive at first but if you divide up what you spend on tinned food and bonio per day it will work out the same – if not cheaper.

I order all my dog supplies from Zoo plus find them excellent

WhiteWalls

Thanks a lot cocker

cocker5

Hope your dog feels much better soon - keep us posted on the progress!

maggiepip

WhiteWalls wrote: »

What would be a good complete food? No particular budget in place, suggestions welcome.

Personally I'd recommend a good quality tinned food above dry food. Its actually far more natural to eat food that contains water rather than dehydrated food. All the natural foods we eat, veg, meat etc, contain a high amount of water/hydration. Most dry foods are processed at crazy high temperatures and dry food can be more difficult to digest for some dogs.

Rocco and Lukulus, both from zooplus work out around the same price as pedigree chum does, and they are a fantastic food. They are also cooked at low temperatures in order to preserve more nutrients.

Ive used salmon oil, coconut oil and dog probiotics, added to the food, for my dog who used to have skin problems with great success.

Galway K9

carnivorekellys.ie , raw the only way.

Junglewoman

Adding rice (basmati was best) to my Westie's food really helped her. This was suggested by my vet but it may different for your dog's breed.

irishlady29

Hi OP
Like you I'm having huge issues with my terrier's skin. Have gone through countless rounds of antibiotics,steroids etc. She's on Burns dry food and has just started on a drug called Atopica and steroids. Really hoping this world as not sure which way to turn to if it doesn't.

DBB

To folks with dogs with atopic dermatitis... In the absence of a definitive cause, it is really important to take a long, hard look at the diet.
Continuing with a dry diet, no matter how "hypoallergenic" it is, no matter how expensive it is, means that you're not exploring the underlying cause for around about 25% of atopic dermatitis cases, and probably a contributory factor in more.
Why? Because if the dog isn't reacting to the cereals contained in many dry foods (which can include rice), or the chicken protein, or the beef protein, then there's a sizeable chance that the dog is reacting to the storage mites that live in all dry food. All of it. Whether it costs you €10 or €100 a bag.
So, it is really important to ditch ALL dry food, all cereals, all beef, all chicken for a couple of months. This means feeding raw, or home-cooked, or high-quality, high-meat, no-cereal tinned food (hard to beat Rocco which can be got on http://www.zooplus.ie). Or, a combination of any 3 of the above. But no dry food, no gravy, no bread, no chew treats unless they're known not to contain cereals, beef or chicken. Oily fish is super for bad skin.

It is a little unusual to treat the condition with both Atopica and steroids, though some vets use them both by alternating them to keep the cost of Atopica down... So, Atopica one day, steroids the next, and so on.
There is a cheaper version of Atopica available now called Cyclavance... Indeed it's better in many ways as it allows for far more accurate dosage than Atopica.
There is also a new medication available which has a different modus operandi to Atopica, and I'm hearing excellent reports about it... It's called Apoquel. Pricey (no more so than Atopica though), hard to get (due to it being a new wonderdrug and in big demand), but very good.

Some vets are excellent when it comes to skin problems, others not so much... Whilst trying steroids as an opening gambit to relieve itching from atopic dermatitis is fine, using them long-term, or not exploring the option of the more modern drugs when the condition is dragging on and on despite steroids and/or Atopica treatment, would have me looking for another vet who is more up to speed on skin.

aonb

Agree absolutely with everything DBB said in previous post.

Its extraordinary how many dogs are suffering, and really suffering, from skin conditions. Is this a 'modern' phenonomon? Caused by mass produced foods, or environment related issues?

I had a miserable little terrier with major skin problems - plus hot spots - and gastric issues - bloating, which was pretty much quickly under control by feeding a grain free diet. A second dog (unrelated) had skin issues too, to a lesser extent. Im not saying that this will fix all/every skin issue, but since its cheap and healthy and easy, its certainly worth trying... Im not knowlegable medically, but the evidence which you can see fairly quickly, its worth a try.

After being to countless vets and no real improvement, often a deterioration, and miserable dogs (and owners) we switched over to home-cooked (rather than raw which could have been an option but we're vegetarian) The dogs never looked back - brown rice, meat or fish, veggies cooked in a big pan every week, stored in the fridge. Added salmon oil, coconut oil and other supplemental things. Cut out all cheap/mass produced 'treats' - went with things like 100% fish jerky, or 100% dried chicken pieces, peanut butter or probiotic yogurt, frozen yogurt lollies etc. Oh and a raw chicken wing/week each for anal glands primarily, but yummy! and a large raw bone/each/week.
Plus the added bonus that the dogs all inhaled it! They were such fussy buggers, and I had more half used or even not used bags of dry kibble going to the shelter every month! The dog who was particularly bad skin-wise, never looked back - no more itching or bloating, the 2nd dog was itch-free too. Im still feeding home cooked - Im happy too cos no waste, and cheaper, and decent poo's and no nasty smelling tins/kibble!

irishlady29

DBB wrote:

To folks with dogs with atopic dermatitis... In the absence of a definitive cause, it is really important to take a long, hard look at the diet. Continuing with a dry diet, no matter how "hypoallergenic" it is, no matter how expensive it is, means that you're not exploring the underlying cause for around about 25% of atopic dermatitis cases, and probably a contributory factor in more. Why? Because if the dog isn't reacting to the cereals contained in many dry foods (which can include rice), or the chicken protein, or the beef protein, then there's a sizeable chance that the dog is reacting to the storage mites that live in all dry food. All of it. Whether it costs you €10 or €100 a bag. So, it is really important to ditch ALL dry food, all cereals, all beef, all chicken for a couple of months. This means feeding raw, or home-cooked, or high-quality, high-meat, no-cereal tinned food (hard to beat Rocco which can be got on

Thanks for your advice. My terrier has just come off a 2 week trial of the apoquel and it didn't work. My vet was ranting and raving about this wonder drug but it didn't turn out so wonderful in my case. No improvement and 2 more hotspots, so now that's 3 in total currently.

irishlady29

aonb wrote:

After being to countless vets and no real improvement, often a deterioration, and miserable dogs (and owners) we switched over to home-cooked (rather than raw which could have been an option but we're vegetarian) The dogs never looked back - brown rice, meat or fish, veggies cooked in a big pan every week, stored in the fridge. Added salmon oil, coconut oil and other supplemental things. Cut out all cheap/mass produced 'treats' - went with things like 100% fish jerky, or 100% dried chicken pieces, peanut butter or probiotic yogurt, frozen yogurt lollies etc. Oh and a raw chicken wing/week each for anal glands primarily, but yummy! and a large raw bone/each/week. Plus the added bonus that the dogs all inhaled it! They were such fussy buggers, and I had more half used or even not used bags of dry kibble going to the shelter every month! The dog who was particularly bad skin-wise, never looked back - no more itching or bloating, the 2nd dog was itch-free too. Im still feeding home cooked - Im happy too cos no waste, and cheaper, and decent poo's and no nasty smelling tins/kibble!

Unfortunately my life style doesn't allow me to go cooking etc and I'm a vegetarian so want to avoid the raw diet as I could stomach it. Reason vet has her on steroids aswell is to ease the itching while waiting for the atopica to work. Your dog sounds very similar to mine, sensitive tummy etc. She got very sick last October and I'm convinced it was due to a concoction of antibiotics, steroids and valium. Might be worth considering getting her looked at by another vet. I'll certainly give that some consideration.

DBB

irishlady29 wrote: »

Thanks for your advice. My terrier has just come off a 2 week trial of the apoquel and it didn't work. My vet was ranting and raving about this wonder drug but it didn't turn out so wonderful in my case. No improvement and 2 more hotspots, so now that's 3 in total currently.

What a nightmare. The fact that Apoquel didn't work for you would suggest that you're not dealing with straightforward (or as straightforward as it can be) atopic dermatitis.
Diet-wise, if you can't do raw or don't have time for home-cooked, then why not try the commercial tinned food option? It's a lot cheaper to feed it than it is to feed Burns, and as per my above post, you simply have to explore the diet/storage mite issue by getting rid of dry food for a couple of months.
Scroll down through this page to find some really good value... there are some varieties that contain pasta, which you'll need to avoid. Also avoid beef or chicken varieties for now, they can be slowly reintorduced in a couple of months if you get a result from this "exclusion diet". Also, get sardines/mackerel/salmon/herring into her!
http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/canned_dog_food/rocco

irishlady29

DBB wrote:

What a nightmare. The fact that Apoquel didn't work for you would suggest that you're not dealing with straightforward (or as straightforward as it can be) atopic dermatitis. Diet-wise, if you can't do raw or don't have time for home-cooked, then why not try the commercial tinned food option? It's a lot cheaper to feed it than it is to feed Burns, and as per my above post, you simply have to explore the diet/storage mite issue by getting rid of dry food for a couple of months. Scroll down through this page to find some really good value... there are some varieties that contain pasta, which you'll need to avoid. Also avoid beef or chicken varieties for now, they can be slowly reintorduced in a couple of months if you get a result from this "exclusion diet". Also, get sardines/mackerel/salmon/herring into her!

Yes both my self and vet were very disappointed. It was the first time he came across that it didn't work. Of course my lady would be in the minority!

What if I cooked 3-4 days worth of rice and added a tin of tuna/salmon or the likes. How much would be enough for her? She weighs about 7kg. Thanks for the advice and posting the link.

DBB

To be super sure, I wouldn't bother with rice, but use spuds to bulk out her food instead
Just plain boiled mushed-up spuds... Most dogs love em! Mix in a bit of boiled mushed-up carrots, broccoli, peas too. You might aim for about 70% fish/meat, 20% veg, 10% spuds. You need to feed to 2-3% of body weight per day, so at 7kg, that's 140-210g of food a day.
Eggs are also good, raw or scrambled.
You can get lactose-free prebiotic natural yogurt in Lidl now... A spoonful of that a day... Yum yum.
If you can bear it, try to vary the meat a bit, so she's not on fish every day. Have you a good pet superstore anywhere nearby? Petmania and Maxizoo, for example, stock a decent range of high-meat tinned foods such as Taste of the Wild, or Naturediet, which contains a wee bit of rice so avoid for now, just to be sure. There are others, just spend a bit of time checking out the ingredients, and remember to opt for novel proteins (not beef or chicken). Or perhaps you've a friend or relative who'd cook a bit of turkey or lamb for her from time to time?
It'll be interesting to see how you get on!

aonb

OP it will certainly be interesting to see how to you get on. I know Im like a broken record, but if say on a Saturday, you take a large pan, throw in 4 potatos, carrots, brocolli and a packet of say lamb pieces (or duck legs or turkey) add lots of water, boil it up, give everything a bit of a chop/mash, stick it in the fridge, and your food is ready for your dog for a week. So easy. Im a vegetarian too, but dogs are carnivores.... You could even do this once a month on a larger scale, then bag up enough for several days, and stick it in the freezer, then into a bowl to defrost when needed. I give mine a nice dollop of probiotic yogurt every evening, add a bit of salmon oil when serving - et voila!! I cant emphasise how much better my poor dogs were once I removed the causes of their reactions from their diets - it was torture when they had hot-spot flare-ups, and one used to be dangerously ill regularly with bloat.I always had some tins of the better tinned foods in stock too for emergencies, or busy days - if you cant afford to go with that option every day

TitianGerm

DBB wrote: »

To folks with dogs with atopic dermatitis... In the absence of a definitive cause, it is really important to take a long, hard look at the diet.
Continuing with a dry diet, no matter how "hypoallergenic" it is, no matter how expensive it is, means that you're not exploring the underlying cause for around about 25% of atopic dermatitis cases, and probably a contributory factor in more.
Why? Because if the dog isn't reacting to the cereals contained in many dry foods (which can include rice), or the chicken protein, or the beef protein, then there's a sizeable chance that the dog is reacting to the storage mites that live in all dry food. All of it. Whether it costs you €10 or €100 a bag.
So, it is really important to ditch ALL dry food, all cereals, all beef, all chicken for a couple of months. This means feeding raw, or home-cooked, or high-quality, high-meat, no-cereal tinned food (hard to beat Rocco which can be got on http://www.zooplus.ie). Or, a combination of any 3 of the above. But no dry food, no gravy, no bread, no chew treats unless they're known not to contain cereals, beef or chicken. Oily fish is super for bad skin.

It is a little unusual to treat the condition with both Atopica and steroids, though some vets use them both by alternating them to keep the cost of Atopica down... So, Atopica one day, steroids the next, and so on.
There is a cheaper version of Atopica available now called Cyclavance... Indeed it's better in many ways as it allows for far more accurate dosage than Atopica.
There is also a new medication available which has a different modus operandi to Atopica, and I'm hearing excellent reports about it... It's called Apoquel. Pricey (no more so than Atopica though), hard to get (due to it being a new wonderdrug and in big demand), but very good.

Some vets are excellent when it comes to skin problems, others not so much... Whilst trying steroids as an opening gambit to relieve itching from atopic dermatitis is fine, using them long-term, or not exploring the option of the more modern drugs when the condition is dragging on and on despite steroids and/or Atopica treatment, would have me looking for another vet who is more up to speed on skin.

I just got Apoquel today from the vet. Enough for one month (1/3 of a tablet a day) and the vet fee for €54.

The steroids and Atopica were much more expensive as far as I remember.

Our guy is allergic to grass and once pollen season starts he is so so itchy he tears himself apart scratching. Has been like this for two/three years now.

He has also been getting Allergy Immunotherapy shots since November/December and they did seem to help a bit but we won't see any real benefits until the full course is finished.

Here's hoping the Apoquel helps because it's though seeing him so uncomfortable.

Millem

Sorry to piggyback this thread!! My girl who has dermatitis can only tolerate burns. I am curious about "rocco". She weighs 30kg and my other dog weighs 35kg. Both can't have anything with beet pulp as it affects their skin. Do you feed it by itself? Also thinking of switching to wolf of wilderness?????

tk123

Millem wrote: »

Sorry to piggyback this thread!! My girl who has dermatitis can only tolerate burns. I am curious about "rocco". She weighs 30kg and my other dog weighs 35kg. Both can't have anything with beet pulp as it affects their skin. Do you feed it by itself? Also thinking of switching to wolf of wilderness?????

Yeah the rococo is meat and veg/rice/pasta depending on which one you go for. The do single protein ones too for sensitive tummies or allergies.

Millem

tk123 wrote: »

Yeah the rococo is meat and veg/rice/pasta depending on which one you go for. The do single protein ones too for sensitive tummies or allergies.

Thanks tk. Hmmm I would need to feed them a lot? Or am I reading it wrong

tk123

Millem wrote: »

Thanks tk. Hmmm I would need to feed them a lot? Or am I reading it wrong

I've never really given just Rocco - I used to bulk out Lucy's meals with it when she was a pup and have mixed it with their raw a few times or fed one raw and one roof... I've always weighed it as if it was raw food. The 800g cans are pretty big - I know it's wet food so has moisture etc etc but the guidelines seem like waaaaay too much to me?

EDIT - I forgot to mention. I know of somebody on a raw feeding group who had a dog with severe allergies - mostly down to mites and environmental factors.. The dogs skin was red raw. She's managed to pretty much eliminate the allergies by feeding Mercola probiotics. They're a bit pricey compared to others buy may be worth a shot.

http://probiotics.mercola.com/probiotics-for-pets.html

aonb

Thought this a clear and sensible article on the subject of allergies. I had forgotten about making cider vinegar/green tea spray - can be effective, adding cod liver oil, and calendula too - all natural, and worth a try, and I found the horse soap mentioned in #10 helped my itchy guy when he had a flare-up before we changed to the home-cooked-diet and non-itchiness!

http://www.dogsfirst.ie/health-issues/itchy-dog-top-10-tips/

Millem

tk123 wrote: »

I've never really given just Rocco - I used to bulk out Lucy's meals with it when she was a pup and have mixed it with their raw a few times or fed one raw and one roof... I've always weighed it as if it was raw food. The 800g cans are pretty big - I know it's wet food so has moisture etc etc but the guidelines seem like waaaaay too much to me?

EDIT - I forgot to mention. I know of somebody on a raw feeding group who had a dog with severe allergies - mostly down to mites and environmental factors.. The dogs skin was red raw. She's managed to pretty much eliminate the allergies by feeding Mercola probiotics. They're a bit pricey compared to others buy may be worth a shot.

http://probiotics.mercola.com/probiotics-for-pets.html

I wonder can you get those probiotics in vet? If so maybe I could claim for pet insurance? I used to claim arthriaid for oldest dog when she was alive and Kalmaid for 35kg dog.