So first off: Yes, she’s been to the vet. Twice. Vet has no answers for me, beyond what I detail below.
So my girly dog, a 14-year-old pug, is in goodish health considering her age, but about a month ago she just started getting itchy, for lack of a better word. She’s constantly scooting around on her butt, licking her undercarriage, scratching her ears, shaking her head. She scratches her ears so badly that she starts yelping as she does it (but she doesn’t stop). Like I said above, she’s been to the vet, here’s what they’ve done/said:
She did have a bladder infection, about 6 weeks ago. Round of antibiotics and subsequent pee test fixed that up.
No ear infection. Her ears were dirty; vet cleaned them. Looking at them now, they look pink & clean, no telltale smell of infection.
Anal glands expressed, twice.
No obvious skin rashes.
But the itching / scratching continues. Vet did mention that older girl doggies may be itchy down under because the urine can sometimes not express as well as it does in younger dogs, and suggested wiping around that area with medicated wipes, which I’ve done. No change. And that doesn’t explain the ears.
Really at my wit’s end here. She obviously is… itchy. But no real solution from the vet.
Additional points of interest:
no food changes
no changes in medication, except for the aforementioned antibiotics. She’s been off those for at least 3 weeks now.
no changes around the house that would account for allergies
snow is on the ground now, so don’t think it’s outdoor allergies.
When my dog scratches, I inspect the area for ticks. I live in the tropics and they are common here. If no ticks, and the dog keeps scratching, it is bath time.
My dog has allergies at certain times of the year. My vet said give him a half tab of generic over the counter antihistamine, (check there is no decongestant in it! ) And it works very well to control it. You could try that and see if it gives relief. You can look up on line the dosage for your dog’s weight easy enough. And you may find it’s a short lived thing, or seasonal like my dog.
The other thing I do when he’s itchy is give him a bath with a quality oatmeal shampoo. Always brings relief, though not a long term solution.
We’re I you I’d start with oatmeal shampoo, see how much relief it gives. If it’s not enough try out the antihistamine at a very low dose. Poor itchy dog, it must be awful for them I think!
My Morgan has been itchy and the vet said that dogs can just develop food sensitivities out of the blue. Beef is a big one, I guess. I’ve switched my dogs to beef-free (luckilly their food is already beef free! Just had to get new treats) just this week to see if that calms her down. She’s not in as bad a shape as yours tho…
My Dolly had a beef allergy. Or maybe just rawhide. I thought baths were giving her crazy itchies but it turns out it was the rawhide I gave her after every bath. This went on for years!!
I guess doing real food allergy testing on a dog is hard and expensive (special food, no treats!) so we’re just going to try eliminating beef for a while to see if that helps. It might be easier with you - smaller dogs, less money for food!
araminty’s suggestion sounds good too. Get that blood tested.
You may not have changed her food, but perhaps the manufacturer has changed the formula? It happens, and the company doesn’t always let you know. If her allergy is food based, this may be why it’s now become an issue.
Until you figure out what is at the root of her itchiness, has the vet suggested anything to help get that under control? It sounds like your dog is pretty uncomfortable and sometimes a short course of antihistamines or steroids can bring some relief.
I’ve just finished a lot of research on this. It turns out dogs can develop allergies fairly late in life, to things that they weren’t allergic to earlier. The symptoms present in a variety of ways, and can be misdiagnosed. I just spent 2 years with my dog getting tested for a number of things including cancer. It looks like antihistamines are solving the problem. It might be worth a try.
You can try out one of the unusual-single-protein foods (like duck or rabbit) to see if it is a food-related allergy. Most food allergies are to common proteins like beef.
I dunno that vets are always so great on chronic non-specific conditions (just like doctors). I have a dog who for about six years got itchy eyes every fall without fail. So bad he would sometimes scratch his own corneas. The vet insisted it was a food allergy even though it was seasonal and he was fed the same year round. No medication helped.
Eventually it just went away, as mysteriously as it showed up.
When my dog was itchy, vet recommended oatmeal bath + OTC antihistamine (he’s a 50-lb. dog so he got a whole capsule)+ 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in his food dish, or licked directly from the spoon, daily. It worked. (The oatmeal bath was an option given by our local do-it-yourself dog wash, so I don’t know what the brand was. The antihistamine was Wal-dryl, Walgreen’s generic Benedryl.)
Aside: I love the do-it-yourself dog wash! It’s their towels, their basin, and their wet floor when the dog shakes. Easily worth $10. Easily. And the shampoo options are: oatmeal, fresh dog anti-odor, whitening shampoo, and one more that I forget. Dog shampoo + conditioner, I think. Plus they have treats to buy if he’s a good boy.
I recommend generic Benadryl also. One of our boxers was always itchy. Chewed on his feet all the time. When you see how much the dosage is for dogs you might be taken aback. It’s a lot more than a human would take, but dogs process it differently.
My Dolly used to take an antihistamine prescribed from the vet. I don’t think it was that expensive. They preferred it to Benadryl because uhm…I forget why. Makes dogs less tired or something?
My lil’ Yorkie is always itchy after the groomer, at least 24hrs. I have talked with her about it, we don’t think it is the shampoo, or a conditioner spray she uses. We’ve decided it is the hair dryer that is in cage. So i have been giving her a half a benadryl when we leave. She is very tiny, so it knocks her right out. It seems to work. She wakes up not itching and scratching.
Ask your vet about Apoquel. My English Setter had an unexplained itch that caused her to chew herself raw. We put her on Apoquel and within a couple days she was itch free. Her fur is back and she’s happy. She gets half a pill a day.
I had to put a dog on an elimination diet for allergies. Turned out the culprit was corn.
Anyway, the first foods she could eat were brown rice and tuna. She ate nothing but brown rice and tuna for three days, then we added potatoes, then sweet potatoes, then canned salmon. IIRC, the next food to get added was oatmeal, and the next after that was turkey.
She had lost fur all down her back, and it started growing back. We stopped adding new foods at this point, because the vet said she was getting enough vitamins. We waited for her fur to grow back. Then we started adding food, and waited to see what effect foods affected her fur growth.
But in any event, the scratching she was doing (which wasn’t responsible for all the fur loss, because it was all down her back, in places she couldn’t reach) stopped within about 36 hours of putting her on tuna and rice.
You could try that on the off-chance that the dog has either suddenly developed an allergy, or the manufacturer has changed the food. I suppose you could also call or write the food manufacturer as well.
Mometamax. It is a combination of anti-bacterial, steroid,and anti-fungal. We used it on my dog’s ears when he had an infection that wouldn’t go away.
The stuff is miraculous, as it knocks out whatever is causing the irritation,while also calming the irritation. Ears and privates are prime territory for yeast infections.
