4 months ago we rescued a Golden Retriever/Cocker Spaniel 3 year old male.
I would say the main issues we are having right now is that we are unable to groom him anywhere around his feet because he trys to bite us. We gave up on professional groomers because they said he was just too much too handle.
Most recently today he snapped at me when I was trying to groom the hair around his pad area. He has never done this before today.
He also has ongoing allergy issues that are unresolved with various trips to the vet and all they continue to do is put him on drugs that only help him short term and then he is back to scratching and ending up with more skin issues. We have tried different diet changes too and nothing changes unless we put him on prednisone.
Connie Sutherland Moderator Reg: 07-13-2005
Posts: 31571
Loc: North-Central coast of California
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You are certainly right not to want to continue on a food/Pred cycle. Most dog allergies are NOT food, and Pred does nothing to help in the long run.
Fortunately, this is an allergy-experienced board.
Please describe for us where the itchiest areas are, how the insides of his ears look, how bad the itching is (interrupt sleep?), whether his paws are inflamed, and whether seasons affect the severity.
Ok, well I don't know about the seasons because we have only had him for about 4 months. His itchiest areas are his feet, butt area, ears, back underside of belly and around his mouth area. When he goes outside or sometimes even inside he rolls around on the floor to scratch his mouth. His paws look red between the toes but not bleeding or too bad looking. The itching does sometimes disturb his sleep and ours since he sleeps with us.
Connie Sutherland Moderator Reg: 07-13-2005
Posts: 31571
Loc: North-Central coast of California
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Has the vet ever taken a scraping (like lifting off cells to 'scope them for external parasites as well as bacteria and fungus)?
Is he on fish oil? How much? Is he on probiotics? How much?
Is he on a good (low or no grain) food?
Has the GP vet mentioned a derm vet? Doing nothing beyond Pred makes clear that the GP vet is not knowledgeable about allergies (and no reason to expect it, really: dermatology is a huge specialty and no GP vet can be expected to be up on it as a derm vet would be).
Have you seen inflammation and/or debris inside the ear(s)? Do his ear flaps look raggedy-edged? By "butt area," do you mean where the tail meets the backbone, or around the anus?
Connie Sutherland Moderator Reg: 07-13-2005
Posts: 31571
Loc: North-Central coast of California
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Quote: connie sutherland
Has the vet ever taken a scraping (like lifting off cells to 'scope them for external parasites as well as bacteria and fungus)?
Is he on fish oil? How much? Is he on probiotics? How much?
Is he on a good (low or no grain) food?
Has the GP vet mentioned a derm vet? Doing nothing beyond Pred makes clear that the GP vet is not knowledgeable about allergies (and no reason to expect it, really: dermatology is a huge specialty and no GP vet can be expected to be up on it as a derm vet would be).
Have you seen inflammation and/or debris inside the ear(s)? Do his ear flaps look raggedy-edged? By "butt area," do you mean where the tail meets the backbone, or around the anus?
No the vet has never taken any scrapings. He is on fish oil (1000 mg) a day. He is also on California Natural Venison grain free food. His ears are a bit red but not near as bad as they were when we first got him. They don't seem raggedy though. By butt area I mean around the anus and on the under side of his tail close to the anus. I also did notice tonight he is really red between the toes and he licks and chews on them constantly in between chewing on his rear end.
Thank you Lori, we seem to be going down the same road as you did changing the foods from single protein to now grain free and the vet did mention allergy testing (the blood type) at our last visit. It is very frustrating and I know you said even after you found out what your dogs allergies were the shots really didn't help so what has worked best to make your dog more comfortable other then the raw food diet? I am suspecting enviromental allergies but I guess it could be a number of things. Sounds like we need to get to a derm vet as soon as we can find one.
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