Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / September 2007

Sounds like she might have a contact allergy.  Might be allergic to
something growing where she walks.  Also, are you using anything in the
house like scented powder for the carpet?  I'd quit that.

If she were my dog, I'd keep her out of tall weeds and try to keep her on
one type of vegetation - lawn grass, say - and see if that helps.

Ask the vet about giving her Benadryl for a couple weeks, see if it lessens
the symptoms.  Benadryl is a fairly benign med, but I am not sure about
giving it with prednisone, so ASK YOUR VET please.

flick 100785

FWIW, my vets think the blood tests for food allergens are not accurate enough
to be useful, but the environmental allergen tests are.  Our lab is supposed
to be allergic to our cats, and sundry other bits and pieces of plants and
mites that I suspect may be correct.  

At any rate, he's been on allergy shots this summer and seems to be doing
well.  He also gets generic Benedryl, which has helped until the shots
seemed to "kick in".  He's back on the generic Benedryl at the moment, as
one of the identified allergens is blooming right now.  

Certainly the shots seem to have made more difference to him than the trial of
Hills ultra-low-allergen diet did.  Can't see that the diphenhydramine
has affected his energy level at all, either, and I pay less than a cent
each for the pills. Possibly worth asking about the diphenhydramine?

Hi --

I fought with a similar situation with my Shepherd/Husky mix for years. He
was fine; he was chewing his fur off; he was red and scaly; he was fine; he
was one big itch; he was fine; etc. etc.

Food allergies were theorized. So we changed his diet. Several times. The
problem was blamed on a flea allergy, so we waged Global Thermonuclear War
on fleas (well above and beyond the normal flea controls we already had in
effect). He was periodically shot up with cortisone. I have Benadryl on hand
at all times. He was put on prednisone.

I finally relented and had a full allergy test run on the dog. It wasn't
easy, since the dog has to be off of pred and similar drugs for several
weeks before the test, and we kept getting the timing off.

Turns out that the dog is allergic to "most molds" and several types of dust
mite -- two classes of allergens that cannot be avoided in South Florida.

So now ...? Frequent vacuuming. Heavy-duty filters on the air conditioner.
Frequent swimming and bathing (not as easy to do since we moved away from
the beach a few years back). His bed gets thrown in the washer weekly (in
addition to being vacuumed daily). The dog's on allergy shots (which I have
to administer). It's too early to tell whether he's getting better. But he's
been off the pred for several months, and he's not getting worse.

Your dog seems to be allergic to something she's coming in contact with --  
when she sits, walks, lies down ... You should consider getting her tested
for allergies. If nothing else, it finally answers the question about what's
causing the problem, and it's cheaper and quicker than all the
trial-and-error "fixes."

Maybe it's because of where we live, but the allergy test report I got was
extremely comprehensive. It included a section listing a slew of grasses and
such, in addition to molds, mites, fleas and other bugs, and many more
environmental allergens. Once it pinpointed the problem, I didn't have to
worry about whether to let the dog run and cavort through the grassy fields,
or sniff around the dunes, etc. In my case, the only way I can get away from
what he's allergic to is to move to Arizona or Nevada ...

HTH
Chuck