Itchy Dogs - Treatment Ideas

Timothy Norton wrote:I'm questioning if some of the chewing is stressed based, she doesn't have separation anxiety per-say but she does have some nervous moments. She is settling in and becoming more comfortable with time and a set daily schedule.

I have obtained some coconut oil and I'm looking into ways to incorporate it in our treatment.

I believe it's 100% possible. I'd go so far as to say 90% probable. Stress is one of the top causes for chewing & hot spots. Doxies tend to be somewhat high-strung, too (I don't mean that in a 'bad dog' way, or anything like that), like many other small dogs. I can't say I blame them. When every living thing around you is way bigger than you, I'm sure it can be kinda scary. Also, she's a rescue, right? She's gone through some major upheaval in her life, and it's going to take some time for her to get through that.

But, the coconut oil is a good step. Some extra bonding time with her 'hoomans' might also help. I'm sure you've already provided her with a secure place to rest and relax, toys, things to occupy her mind...

My local vet has been booked out but I managed to get my little one in for an evaluation.

After some testing, the vet does not believe it to be a food allergy but is unsure exactly what it could be. We ruled out mites, fleas, ticks, and other general things that could be seen through combing/microscope testing. She was inquiring if my other dog had any skin issues and she has not had any issues...

Until today.

My other dog has popped up with skin issues at the base of her tail and on her haunches. What the heck!?

The plan of action now involves a regiment of bathing, food supplements (fatty acids/fish oil), and topical treatment to try and reduce itchiness.

Let's just say that the girls are not thrilled about baths but they are trending towards the right direction!

I have recently discovered that almost all dog kibble is baked at temperatures that are too high, and degrade ingredients. The only way around this being freeze dried according to that information.
I have a ton of medium grade chow that my new puppy is getting, along with homemade food, but mainly so I can keep up with his growth, which is good as I am cleaning out freezers! I probably won't buy more.
The old boy is only getting homemade food, lots of raw eggs, and he gets first dibs on baked fish heads and tails,etc before the puppy finishes things off.

My old boy has more energy than he had a couple of months ago, when I started cutting back and finally eliminating kibble over the past few.weeks. He has never had skin issues, but had chronic diarrhea when I adopted him a decade ago being his 4th owner, but probiotics, weeds, peelings, animal fat, raw pig heads, and cows feet, homemade bone meal from healthy meat, and second-broth after some for the humans, cooked with lentils and whatever, cleared his diarrhea in no time. My dog had a stress component though as well and all that settled down quickly but when I was away up north, he wasn't getting daily his freezer care packs of homemade food -- we are still going through all that now. So he was getting pure kibble half time. I gave him one more winter, but he is starting to get playful already! 75-85 lbs and 13 years old.

I have known dogs with skin issues and they all were eating kibble. High sugar being the worst.

I would try picking up red split lentils which cook up as quickly as rice, and get ground fennel for digestive enzymes. Make your own food, and raw eggs, raw, meat buy whole fish and feed the heads, try tapering off the kibble for a while and just see?

I am very curious how things went if you do try this.

PS it is way way cheaper to feed them this way.

What will I be doing with my nettles after making tisane? Chopping them up and throwing in the freezer in rewashed ziplock bags. The nice tender shoots I shall use like spinach for myself, but the rest will go in the dog food over the next few months. Then ditto in Spring!

You can also slow cook your turnip skins, sluggy celery, etc, and save the water and use up whatever you want to cook in the water for yourself, you and the dog, then fine slice the slush and again, care packs for dog food!

I hope this helps
The short list of bad dog foods are grapes and raisins, allium, especially raw onions, chocolate and cocoa.

I think it is most appropriate to not just look onto the symptom, but looking for the cause for the illness and with that onto all aspects of the dog. The skin in animals as well as in people is a detoxification organ. So if the skin is itchy, it tries to get rid of toxins and using this exit means that liver and kidney and gutt among others are overloaded. It all starts with the nutrition/diet. Any packed food is the same bad as for people, sure easy to apply but sooner or later damaging or killing the body. The itchy skin is a warning signal. Meds who are suppressing the itch making it even worse for the body, in fact almost all of the chemical meds from a vet/pharma are poisonous. Alternatively, there are several routes one can try without any side effects, cheap, self-applyable and effective. As for starting to change the diet, here is a good ebook, which explains a lot, worth to read it. And yes, if there has to be a change, oneself has to come out of the comfy-area and start moving! It might take 1 or 2 weeks to get used to something new and find the best way in one's daily routine to apply it. This is the link: https://rotationalmonofeeding.com/the-rmf-diet/   for the book. This is one way to start optimize and heal your animal or people, and yes, this also counts for cancer patients, in animals and people!!! As for the alternative treatment possibilities, i don't know, if i am allowed to talk about them here? Forgive me if i am doing something wrong, it is the first time i am posting anything!

Consider yeast - a lot of people think their itchy dog has allergies, when it's really just yeast. Do an internet search for: "yeast protocol Lew Olson" for information about yeasty dogs and treatment of them.

As others have mentioned, a real food diet (vs kibble) will help greatly, getting away from carbs (food for yeast growth) especially - so no potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas/beans, etc.  Dogs are carnivores and don't need these things in a complete diet, and can't even digest much in the way of vegetables anyway (e.g., carrots come out pretty much exactly how they went in). Stick with fish oil instead of coconut oil - again, digestibility factor. Dogs have a simple, short stomach, designed for meat consumption. They can tolerate more carbs than their canis lupus ancestors...until they can't, and you get "allergies" and yeast issues. And yes, be very careful with essential oils - NONE are safe to use on dogs topically "neat" (without diluting in a safe carrier oil), with the possible exception of lavender, but look into yeast control first. And, lucky you, she's little - the yeast protocol is a lot with a large dog, especially a large, heavily coated dog. Good luck!

Maureen Finn wrote:Consider yeast

Excellent point! That would explain why the most chronic back rashes I have seen were on dogs eating high sugar kibble

Skin issues are digestion issues. Recommend probiotics! Also, don't be afraid to let your dogs eat grass, or chew on large raw bones that they cannot swallow.

Thanks for all the reminders of things I haven’t done for my dog.

Great Pyrenees.  A big girl!  About 16 months at this point.  She started getting something on the tip of her nose.  I just thought it was the mud at first, or high elevation sun.

The funny patch spread up the top of her nose towards her eyes.  Then she had some funny spots around her eyes.  The rate of spread accelerated.  By the time I got her to the vet the insides of her ears were inflamed and weeping, and she had patches all over, and between her toes….

It’s a condition called pemphigus.  It’s an autoimmune condition.  It’s subsided quite a bit, mostly because of the cortisone pills.   Prednisone.  I hate giving her prednisone, it has dire and extensive side effects.  My opinion on prednisone is that it’s only appropriate in life or death situations, but that’s what this is!  Without the prednisone I think she would have no hair, no skin, probably be dead by now. I am very gradually decreasing the daily dose.  And using quality of life as a guide.  

Remarkably she doesn’t appear uncomfortable nor to be suffering a decreased quality of life, has only a small patch on her nose, we’re back to the starting place.

But all these reminders  about calendula, plantain probably comfrey, all the skin supporting herbs might feel good and help the skin and hair maintain themselves.

And yes, I give her a “quality” diet but I am sure I could improve it by studying this whole thread intensively!

Thanks so much !

For the curious, it is not advisable to give varying amounts of prednisone, or other corticosteroids.  It’s a powerful hormone and tied to our circadian rhythm rhythms.  The best possible strategy is a constant dose at a specific time.  Our (mammals) cortisone levels are naturally highest in the morning on arising.  That’s the time of day I give her dose.  In autoimmune conditions you start off with a large enough dose to suppress what ever you want to suppress.  Stay at that level to see an improvement, then very carefully, begin to taper off.

I had a friend who years ago had some inexplicable painful skin thing.  On prednisone for more than a year .  She wanted to get off it.  Had to convince the doctor who liked the results of it.  But she described to me what the internal experience was to just taper the daily dose by a small percentage…..

My mental picture is that there’s an equilibrium which allows the healing, and the idea is to decrease the dose without upsetting the equilibrium.  Then stay at that dose until the body has adjusted to the lower levels of the drug before again reducing it.

The vet said “ sometimes they get over it”. So wish my darling Sharkie all the luck in the world.  She’s a YOUNG dog.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Thanks for all the reminders of things I haven’t done for my dog.

Great Pyrenees.  A big girl!  About 16 months at this point.  She started getting something on the tip of her nose.  I just thought it was the mud at first, or high elevation sun.

The funny patch spread up the top of her nose towards her eyes.  Then she had some funny spots around her eyes.  The rate of spread accelerated.  By the time I got her to the vet the insides of her ears were inflamed and weeping, and she had patches all over, and between her toes….

It’s a condition called pemphigus.  It’s an autoimmune condition.  It’s subsided quite a bit, mostly because of the cortisone pills.   Prednisone.  I hate giving her prednisone, it has dire and extensive side effects.  My opinion on prednisone is that it’s only appropriate in life or death situations, but that’s what this is!  Without the prednisone I think she would have no hair, no skin, probably be dead by now. I am very gradually decreasing the daily dose.  And using quality of life as a guide.  

Remarkably she doesn’t appear uncomfortable nor to be suffering a decreased quality of life, has only a small patch on her nose, we’re back to the starting place.

But all these reminders  about calendula, plantain probably comfrey, all the skin supporting herbs might feel good and help the skin and hair maintain themselves.

And yes, I give her a “quality” diet but I am sure I could improve it by studying this whole thread intensively!

Thanks so much !

For the curious, it is not advisable to give varying amounts of prednisone, or other corticosteroids.  It’s a powerful hormone and tied to our circadian rhythm rhythms.  The best possible strategy is a constant dose at a specific time.  Our (mammals) cortisone levels are naturally highest in the morning on arising.  That’s the time of day I give her dose.  In autoimmune conditions you start off with a large enough dose to suppress what ever you want to suppress.  Stay at that level to see an improvement, then very carefully, begin to taper off.

I had a friend who years ago had some inexplicable painful skin thing.  On prednisone for more than a year .  She wanted to get off it.  Had to convince the doctor who liked the results of it.  But she described to me what the internal experience was to just taper the daily dose by a small percentage…..

My mental picture is that there’s an equilibrium which allows the healing, and the idea is to decrease the dose without upsetting the equilibrium.  Then stay at that dose until the body has adjusted to the lower levels of the drug before again reducing it.

The vet said “ sometimes they get over it”. So wish my darling Sharkie all the luck in the world.  She’s a YOUNG dog.

Oh Thekla, I feel for you!  Decades ago I had a Great Pyrenees mix who started with that same small spot on her nose.  It started to spread, so I took her to the vet.  He gave me some prescription cream after diagnosing her with a staph infection.  The symptoms spread to her front legs, so I called the vet and he simply said to up the dosage of cream.  It continued to spread to her backside, and she began to become infested with maggots under her fur.  I'd heard that they only ate dead tissue so I was confused.  I took her to the emergency vet, and they said her skin was literally dying.  To save her would have cost thousands of dollars I didn't have, and she would've had to have been on steroids for the rest of her life.  I wish I had known about homeopathy back then... I might have been able to save her before things got so bad.  

I wish you the best helping your Sharkie heal and live a long healthy life!

Thank you Donna!  Maybe your dog had this same condition.

I don’t usually do extreme treatment on animals.  The vet recognized it immediately, said Great Pyrenees were prone to it.  I hadn’t known that when I got her.  I probably won’t get another Pyrenees.  Mine has some Anatolian shepherd mixed in, and I had thought it might be enough to bring in hybrid vigor.

I was thinking I would have to put her down, but the prednisone worked so well so fast.  And then my sister got recurrence of her very aggressive cancer, died in 6 weeks.

It’s no time for me to make a life death decision to the death side when Sharkie has  quality of life:  pasture to own and sheep to tend, a mixed species flock to own and tend….

But I know the ultimate outcome, we always do.  Just don’t know when.  I was going to get a replacement and helper dog, but right this minute, the logistics are too much for me!  

Ok, sorry OP.😊.  I believe the topic is itching canines.

Have you tried coloidal silver? I make my own as that's loads cheaper. It's excellent for this sort of thing.

Our German Shepard suffers greatly after a bath in anything but rainwater.  It's not the shampoo, it's the hard water for him.  Once I figured this out, I was able to experiment with water from the water softener, hose, and creek.  We noticed when he plays in the creek he is not itchy afterward.  So we bathe him with clean collected rainwater.  We had tried forms of pain meds etc. but the solution is rainwater baths and vigilant brushing.  We also found the omega skin coat effective.

This is long but perhaps parts might be helpful, especially considering it's care provided by a veterinarian dermatologist and not the internet!

Not long after I got Jack, he began scratching half the day, his hair began thinning and his skin was beet red with scabs. Initially, I took the Apoquel and Royal Canin approach, expensive with a life-long dependency on products that were certainly not a cure. There isn't much in the standard veterinarian's tool bag for itching, so I went to a holistic vet and while her tinctures and such may have helped, he was too far along in his condition. I found the veterinarian dermatologist and finally Jack's improvement began. He had yeast (he smelled yeasty) and skin infections, determined by skin tests analyzed right there in the office. He was put on antibiotics, Cytopoint, Simparico TRIO, and Douxos3 shampoo twice a week. Once the fires were quelled, I opted for a long term, less drug dependent plan of allergy drops, which was a concoction she formulated in the office of most everything he was allergic to, mostly mites (through the roof allergic) and grasses. He receives the drops twice a day orally and providing I keep up with them, especially in the summer, that is enough to keep him from scratching. In the winter, I have actually stopped the drops altogether. If I've been negligent with the drops, he will have to get a Cytopoint injection ASAP in order to stay ahead of the itching, which if the scratching becomes bad enough, the allergy drops might not rescue him and he would have to start at the beginning again. The allergy product is not cheap but it goes a long way and is benign, my preference. I have also continued monthly shampoos with the expensive Douxos3 and the Simparico TRIO chewables. Additionally, he has a raw diet of 80% meat 20% vegetables with a little canned thrown in, a diet which the vet wanted me to continue. At the beginning she also wondered if he was allergic to his food, which was primarily beef with occasional chicken, lamb and pork, suggesting I try rabbit and KANGAROO!!, that is, meat from animals that weren't feathered or hooved. Fat chance I was ordering exotic meats from around the globe! His meals are from a book titled Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats, by Dr. Karen Becker. Allergy drops might not work for every dog, though I had monthly allergy shots given to another dog in the early 90's and they too were successful, so much so I was able to stop the shots altogether. Jack will never experience that though, after having been on allergy drops for 3 years and an occasional Cytopoint injection. Jack also has the genetics of three working dogs and he has anxiety issues and is noise reactive, not uncommon in those breeds and that psychology could also be contributing to his scratching.