My 5 year old Beagle had a sudden allergy attack, it seems. That's my first guess, at least. He's had skin "issues" in the past, and was prescribed a certain shampoo, and we also started giving him one fish oil capsule/day, and he's been good since.

I noticed some obsessive chewing on his tail last week, though. He's always kind of licked and chewed on himself, but never to an extent where I thought it was unhealthy. This time, it was different... non-stop.

I work from home so I take the dogs out pretty frequently, about every 3 hours or so, so I see my dogs throughout the day enough to recognize a problem right away. So I call the dogs to go out and here comes Buddy with his right eye half covered by his third eyelid (I think) came from the top and bottom of his eye, and his tail had a small bald spot from where he had been relentlessly gnawing.

So I took him to the vet, and she loaded me up with Simplicef, Tamaril, and a Triple Antibiotic ointment with a steroid for his eye.

This was maybe a week ago? I gave him the meds pretty regularly, except the eye ointment. Only did that once since he's been home... I'm new to the alternative medicine approach, and I just wanted to give him relief. But I don't want to just help the problem temporarily with pills... that doesn't really tell me what happened here and how to avoid it or be better prepared next time?

And was it in fact allergies? Or maybe stress? The eye reaction makes me feel like it's allergies...

But that's what YOU GUYS are for!!!

*Side note... he's been fine since that day, and hasn't had any problems with his tail as well as his eye. There was a little bit of redness in his eye for a day or two after the incident, but not in the past 48 hours... He seems to be pretty much back to normal.

Sounds a lot like pest bite(s).

However, it sounds like the vet saw or suspected Staphylococcus (the Simplicef).

The eye med would be something I would be faithful about. JMO!

How much does the dog weigh, BTW? (I'm asking about the 1000 mg fish oil, which I would consider a dose for a ten-pound dog. )

Also, the tail ..... classic flea geography and classic time of year. Not seeing fleas does not mean no fleas, and a hypersensitive dog would be driven crazy by one exposure. Have you done a white-sheet test?

Now that you mention the Simplicef, my Shih Tzu puppy (16 weeks) was also given Simplicef when what appeared to be a stye on her upper eyelid showed up and having seen it before on a dog, I gave her warm compresses with the Simplicef and it is slowly getting smaller and "going away". Maybe there's a link between the two dogs?

The eye med I just gave him... Probably done it about 3x now. So 4x in the past 7 days... (including the day AT the Vet's)

Buddy weighs 40 lbs. which means 3-4 pills @ 1200 mg/ea.?

I have not done a white sheet test...

I did just sift through is tail hair to see if I could see flea dirt, and I wiped what I saw with a white paper towel and it looks like dirt dirt...

Do you have this dog on monthly flea medication?

Yes, I do.