Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / February 2006

The armadillo would roll up into a ball until you and Jake go
away! Of course, Jake could play with it like a basketball
for awhile!

8^)~~~        Sue       (remove the x to e-mail)
~~~~~~

 "I reserve the absolute right to be smarter
 today than I was yesterday." -Adlai Stevenson
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Lucky you!  Armadillo = bowling ball.  

My dogs, on the other hand, like to do the same thing with porcupines.  It
seems the pin heads will never learn....

........Well in the case of my dogs, if they catch them it's crunch crunch
crunch.

buglady
take out the dog before replying

This is a all to common situation...the owner believes each test he does really is the only
time it needs to be performed or tried.  If you took him to a teaching hospital this is what they
would do ...they would look at your history and basically tell you that they needed to start over.
Let me also start by saying that blood allergy tests are poor, and intradermal skin testing is far
more accurate and usefull.  That said ...here we go ...you lesions on pics 1 and 3 look to be
partially caused by self trauma, there is marked hyperkeratosis and alopecia.  where do the lesions
occur exactly on the body.  Does the dog lick the lesions does the dog scratch the lesions.  how often
do the lesions occur? year round or during specific seasons? what flea preventative is your dog
on. Is your dog on heartworm medication (what type) was your dog tested for heart worm.  Does
your dog have any concurrent disease. Are there any other animals in the house. any info would
be helpful as to exactly what is happening to your dog.  How old ..breed etc....

now ...they take your dog and say we are going to do some basic tests ...
and that's what it is ...basic
they take tap and press it over the lesion and stain it and look at it under the scope
they will fungal culture it to see if that is the cause
they will then scrape the crap out the skin and try to find mites.
they will recommend a food trial ...a long one ...that will likely not improve the dog
for up to 6 months. ...that's right 6 months to rule out food allergy as a cause.
I like to use Z/D ...the key is the novel protein ...IVD makes some good ones
as well .... D/D is also a good product.  
then if none of this works ...a skin biopsy can be taken ...if you want another
test to do ..this is the one ....pathologists can see exactly what is happening to the
tissues at a cellular level ...very useful ....
i would also probably recommend intradermal skin testing ....remember no steroids for a long time
in order to get accurate results....also go to a dermatologist to get this done ...they
have frequent turn over of their antigens ...and are better at reading the tests
then if everything in the world fails ..then start tossing around antibiotics and steroids ....which
really will solve a lot of derm issues regardless of the cause ....usually they recurr with the
discontinuing of steroids ...and then you never can get at the root of the cause ....

oh ...and put an e-collar to stop the self trauma ...often dogs chew themselves due to bordem
this becomes infected and causes hyperkeratosis, secondary pyoderma, alopecia etc....

hope that helps.

-m