I have been feeding my new puppy a raw diet since a week after getting him. I got him at 9 weeks and he is now 4 months. He is about 14 lbs.

I buy whole chickens, cut off the breast meat, and then chop up the rest of the bird into smaller pieces. For breakfast he gets all muscle meat - either beef (ground or a cheap cut) or chicken breast, about 115g right now. About once or twice a week I include an egg in there.
Then for dinner he gets about 115g of the cut up chicken (pretty much all RMBs) and several times a week I include about 30 or 40 g of either beef kidney or liver. On his dinner meal he gets 1 pump of Grizzly Salmon Oil, about 1/4 tsp of kelp/alfalfa mix, 1/8 tsp calcium, and a veggie mix that varies weekly (they have included romaine, carrots, celery, sweet potatoes, small amounts of ginger and garlic, small amounts of bell peppers, broccoli and cauliflower, cucumber, and apples).

Does this sound like a good feeding program?

For treats and chews he gets Zukes mini naturals mostly, and bison tendons as well as Bully sticks. He also gets some other soft treats called 'wellness' and cheese for training.

He has been an itchy puppy since we got him, but last Thursday he actually drew blood on the top of his head, about an inch above his eye. I started giving him benadryl and it seems to help, so I'm pretty sure he has an allergy of some sort. I just have NO idea what it could be! I cut out all of his treats and started using cut up hot dogs to see if it could be any of his treats, but it doesn't seem to help. He has been off all of his treats and chews for about 3 days and there hasn't been an improvement.
Does anybody have any idea of what it could be? Or any advice on how to pinpoint it?

A big reason I wanted to feed raw was to avoid allergies. I wasn't expecting this.

Almost 90% of dogs' allergies are not food allergies. Food allergies would be way down on the list of "most likely."

#1 allergy = fleas
#2 allergy = atopy
#3 (and way behind those two) = food

With the face being the area of concern, I would take him for a scraping asap.


http://www.puppy-training-solutions.com/dog-mites.html

http://www.stopdogitching.com/sarcoptic-mange-in-dogs.html

The most likely allergen (if it is an allergy) is NOT a food, but rather something environmental. Inhaled allergens like pollen or mold or dust mites. Or fleas.

This is the time of year that one of mine has a seasonal allergy to whatever is in the air in fall. After the first frost, the itching always stops in her case.

Lots of allergy dog experience on this board, so I'm sure you'll get some good advice. But despite many people's natural instinct to suspect food first, it usually isn't. IMO.

would benadryl help against mites though?

Its sedating effect can help calm frantic itching in some dogs. It cannot kill mites, but it can help suppress the release of histamines.

There are two statistically more effective antihistamines for dogs (Hydroxyzine and Chlorpheniramine), although if the individual dog is relieved by Benadryl, he's not going to care about stats.

Dogs' reactions to antihistamines are very individual.

In the case of mites, of course, once they are seen/diagnosed, managing becomes less of a priority than treating the mites. (With atopy, OTOH, symptom management often becomes a major factor.)

Is there hair loss? Pustules? Rash? Constant itching? Any interruption of sleep?


Is this only one spot on the dog? Just the one head/face spot?

PS

Of course, I'm not at all suggesting that "it must be mites."

But from your description so far, external parasites come to mind first.

Derm issue on the face of a puppy makes me think mites too. "Puppy mange," "Red mange," "Demodex." All names for the same thing that you can google for pictures to compare to your pup's case.

Minor cases often resolve on their own as the puppy builds up his immune system. It's a pretty common issue.

A skin scraping by the vet can diagnose it pretty easily. The vet will literally scrape a small section of skin with the edge of a scalpel (which will make that spot look worse for a week or two) and examine the scraping under a microscope. If mites are present in the hair follicles, they'll be evident. Then the vet can determine if the case is bad enough to treat with a topical insecticide, or just "wait and watch."

BTW--your raw diet sounds great to me. And whatever condition is causing this is only being HELPED by a high-quality diet.

Well there is only hair loss where he has scratched so much that there is a wound - and that is on one spot on his face (a little higher than his eyes almost between them). I tried getting a good look at it last night, but it really just looks like he scratched so hard that there is about a 1/4" diameter spot missing hair, and red. It seems to scab over but then he scratches it again and opens it up. It started out smaller, I remember noticing it a while ago and it just looked like the tiniest bit of hair missing, with no obvious scab or sore. There are some other smaller spots on his head that when I smooth my hand over his head, I can feel 3 other small bumps (like the size of a small zit). Again, when I got a close look they just look like tiny scabs. It does seem odd though. The other spot where I can see anything is on his nose, he hasn't made it bleed but it is somewhat red. The fur on his nose is white and thinner so it's easy to see through to his skin.

Other than those spots he does scratch all over his body, but those are the only places with any sort of obvious skin abnormalities. He scratches his neck, his elbows and bites along his front legs

It does interrupt his sleeping. He sleeps in his crate in our bedroom and I wake up when I hear his leg thumping from itching himself. It usually happens around 3 or 4 in the morning when the benadryl wares off then I get up and give him another dose.

I'm surprised the vet hadn't suggested mites. He was just in last week for his second round of shots. He didn't see his normal vet though because she was so booked up because she's the only holistic vet at that clinic. I did mention my concern about the itching and she just told me to try benadryl and see what happens. Since I told her that it helped she is trying to get me to go in for an allergy testing ($500!!). I just made an appointment with his normal holistic vet but we have to wait until the 24th.

PLEASE do not heed anything just called "allergy testing" until you read threads here about what true allergy identification is. Most GP vets do NOT know a lot of derm/allergy stuff (and why would they? It's a specialty for a reason).

For example, as we have pointed out, even though you will often get "change to this waiting room food" answers, most dog allergies are NOT food. Second, for atopy, the RAST and ELISA (blood) tests are not very reliable. Third, there is NO test for dogs if they do have a food allergy except the strict elimination diet. Fourth, the gold standard for testing for environmental/inhalant allergies, which is the intradermal, is not jumped into instantly, because there are so many steps to rule out other possibilities first. I'm not even going to talk about how I feel about someone suggesting intradermal as Step One (or someone suggesting blood tests as Step Anything) for an itchy dog who has not even had a simple scraping done yet.

I want to add that the fact that an antihistamine helps does NOT necessarily mean that the dog has atopic dermatitis. Antihistamines work by preventing the binding of histamine (and other chemicals) to the cell receptors. (By the time the individual is scratching, the histamine has started its "work," so antihistamines are most effective when they are administered before anticipated exposure/reaction. {You probably know that whereas humans have histamine receptors mainly in their mucus membranes, dogs have them in their skin. Sneezing, runny eyes, etc., in a human translate to itchy skin {and other symptoms} in dogs.}

The antihistamine, if it benefits the individual dog (and only about a third or so of allergic dogs get measurable benefit from antihistamines, although that number goes up when they are used in conjunction with long-chain Omega 3s {fish oil}), is not limited to atopic dermatitis. Of course, with external parasites and food allergies, the obvious fix is removal of the offending agent, but that does not mean that antihistamines cannot provide a little (or more) relief. Even the sedative effect can be useful with a frantically itchy dog.

This "Since I told her that it helped she is trying to get me to go in for an allergy testing ($500!!)" is not a good response if that was all that was suggested, IMHO.

So if the first suggestion is a blood test, run. That will be the beginning of pouring money into a big black hole until you give up and get a derm vet referral, which should have happened as soon as external parasites (including fleas) were ruled out.

What have you done to check for fleas? (Not seeing them and not having any on the family humans means nothing. )

Of course, I have no real way to assess your dog -- I'm just saying that these (fleas and mites) are two triggers that could fit everything you say and that, compared to atopy, are simple to treat. And external parasites should be ruled out before other, much more complicated, conditions are considered.

I would use "itching" and "allergies" and "itch" and "RAST" (one by one) and extend the date range from a week to four years on the search engine that's up top there between "active topics" and "FAQ." (There are other very good search engines here, but that one will be most useful, I think, with the specificity you have.)

I doubt that you will find better sources of links and first-hand information elsewhere on the web about all dog allergies, from flea saliva hypersensitivity to food, and everything between.

Then I would do a careful white-sheet flea exam asap. If you've never done this, post back and we'll help.

Is there scratching along the backbone or at the base of the tail?

In a pup I'd be checking for fleas, for sarcoptic mange mites, for demodex ( usually not too itchy) long, long long before I'd be thinking allergy, unless there is contact allergy, i.e. to his bed,(straw mites in bedding in a dog house) to a plastic bowl, to laundry soaps, to new carpet. I have seen contact allergy in pups.
Itchy "head" is usually mites of some sort. Itchy rump is usually fleas.
Ringworm can be itchy as well, it leaves the skin thickened, hair gone, and reddened. My own dog had a bout of that last winter on his face.