Puppy with allergies

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hlopez18
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:43 am

Puppy with allergies

Post by hlopez18 »

My four and a half month old puppy has some bad allergies. It started with her sneezing a lot and then recently she started biting her paws a lot and scratching her sides. She's also having a lot of nasal discharge which makes her look so sad and pathetic. Our vet told us to give her Benadryl (a quarter tablet every 6-8 hours). It works for an hour or so but then she starts to sneeze and get a runny nose again. I don't think it's her food because she's been eating it since she was two months old and it just started to show these allergies. She's on Orijin large breed puppy. Does anyone have any suggestions on how else to deal with allergies? It's really sad to see her with all that snot especially when it gets all over her coat. Poor girl.

Thanks.
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Nettle
Posts: 10753
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:40 pm

Re: Puppy with allergies

Post by Nettle »

I have a homeopathic vet who is awesome with allergies. If you have access to the same, do not hesitate to take puppy there.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

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runlikethewind
Posts: 1166
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 12:48 pm

Re: Puppy with allergies

Post by runlikethewind »

Hello

I have a border collie who developed allergies at around 13 months. Four and half is quite young to develop allergies - you have to have been exposed once before to the allergen to then be allergic next time.. so I wonder if yours is food related. Hence with my dog is was one summer and the next summer, he started with itchiness and hair loss around the muzzle the next summer - because it was environmental allergies.

If you have pet insurance, they will normally cover the costs of allergy testing. First of all though, my vet wanted to rule out any food intolerance (actual food allergies are rare). You are supposed to do an elimination diet over several weeks - buy a food containing a novel protein and carb (if you go for kibble or wet food). We did this and the symptoms were still present so we went into allergy testing - sub cutaneuus and blood tests, done under sedative. It appears my dog is allergic to 3 grass pollens and dust mites. My dog now has monthly allergy shots covered by insurance - aimed to de sensitise him to the allergens. He is much better but will never be 100% - allergies are in the genes apparently or some believe caused by vaccinations. I have also had lots of discussions with vets about vaccinations. My homeopathic vet had said my dog should not have had his yearly full booster. Going forward, I am titer testing and not vaccinating unnecessarily. Having said this, my dermatologist simply does not believe vaccines are to blame - the body can deal with mutiple bacteria hittin it. I have done so much research! I would suggest you ask about titer testing at a year old and being very careful about vaccinations in general.

So I would recommend you visit your vet and see what tests can be carried out to find the cause of the allergies.

Going on from that, I also looked at and tried various other aspects of diet etc. My dog is now on a raw food diet and it is not as daunting as it seems - and very cheap too. He looks great! You can look at supplementing with aloe vera, an omega 6 and 3 oil (Viacutan) is one of the ones that our dermatologist prescribes under insurance. This works for some dogs as they have done research into the anti inflammatory properties of omega 3 with the right amount of omega 6. You can also buy Yumega Plus (UK). I also vacuum a lot more now, I have dust mite proof bedding and covers on everything including his bed which I vacuum regularly. There is also a product called Phytopica which can be prescribed to deal with allergies (it's based on chinese medicine). This is a serious product though and I would not recommend dosing it without expert advice. I steer well clear of steriod treatments - my dermatologies respected that, even when he wanted to presribe my dog a steriod cream to deal with some itching around my dog's eyes. After a while, the hair loss setttled down. I used a wonderful cream call Dermacton - all natural. I used to rub it gently into the skin before walking so that my dog was preoccupied with walking and not licking it off. We're just at the end of a Summer here and we've not done badly at all. I like to think the raw diet is making a difference.

Food intolerances appear like environmental allergies as well - so you should work out what is going on first.
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