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Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:49 pm

For months, our Border Collie mix, Lola has been having skin troubles. We had taken her to her regular veternarian for months before being recomended to another veterinarian about a half hour away. Everyone kept saying she had a skin infection but nothing was really helping it. The poor three-year-old girl was put on a bunch of medicine, including steroids which she seemed to be immune to.
The second veterinarian said that she may be allergic to some things and gave us a special dog food that she "couldn't be allergic to anything in it". So we found another veterinarian near our house that actually had begun to specialize in skin care, so we tried there also. All they did was a blood test right away and sent it in to a labratory to see if she was allergic to anything. Ends up that she is allergic to pretty much everything she has been eating her whole life including, wheat and beef and soy products and many other things, including environmental stuff like trees that are common in this area. We bought a food that didn't have anything in it she was allergic to (the one the other vet gave us had wheat of all things in it) and bought her some treats and other stuff. It ends up that didn't help her as much as hoped and she is now getting shots every month. Well, as of now she's being built up to it and has them daily for a while then every few days then every few weeks and etcetera until she's used to it enough that she can go with it every month.
Now, I would like to know, if any one else's dogs or any other pets have had something like this? A long time ago we also had a dog with epilepsy so this is actually only two out of six dogs that we've had that ended up being very ill with something.
I was just wondering about different illnesses any of you have had with your dogs or any allergies any dogs you have had have had? (wow, that was weird to type)

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:22 pm

one of my dogs has flea allergy so bad that just one bite is enough to cause a hotspot and have her scratch out her fur. We have used all the flea products and find K9 advantix works the best as it seems to repel the little buggers before they bite her. We also debug the back yard regularly - I live in Georgia and the fleas here are wild and ravenous! smile

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KisstheCobra

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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:02 pm

(Yes I realize this hasn't had a bit in well over a year.)

My Australian Kelpie x Border Collie cross, Howie, is three years old and has had skin problems his entire life thus far. He's almost entirely black, but his black nose turned a bright pink color, dried out, and peeled away in strips. I couldn't figure out what it was for the life of me. I continuously consulted my veterinarian (whom my family had regularly gone to for nearly 20 years), and the best diagnosis anyone seemed to procure was that he was sunburned. My black dog. As for his always itchy and dry skin, the vet would brush me off saying Howie just has fleas, his actual statement was "He's a black dog, living in California. I believe that's enough."

It wasn't.

Nearing the end of 2009, Howie began to bleed constantly from his poor nose. Originally he only bled every so often, if he really hit it against something, or if he was stung by a bee and his entire face swelled up. But one day I came home from work to here that he had been bleeding non-stop, in a sprinkler type fashion from his nose, all over our yard and house. My mother had to sit with him for thirty minutes applying pressure to his nose until the bleeding stopped. Two days later while outside for his morning potty break he started bleeding again. It really was just like a sprinkler, but from his nose. The blood just kept coming and in the twenty minutes it took to get him to the vet, the veterinarian said he was at risk of bleeding to death. Howie also began to have blood in his stool, and became lethargic. His veterinarian said he was not internally bleeding, that he could see, and that he had no idea what was causing this. He then went on to say Howie must have a bizarre disease, and that we should put him down.

I did not feel the same, as he found out upon my arrival to visit with my dog. Howie went in on a Friday morning, and the veterinarian insisted on keeping him until Monday, at which point he wanted to keep him until Tuesday or even later. When I took Howie home on Monday, the receptionists messed up Howie's medicine directions and we ended up giving him two pills twice a day for three days instead of one pill twice a day, which did not affect him well. When I called to clear this up, the receptionists simply had the 'oops' attitude.

Venting to a kennel owner, and my brother's in-laws, it was suggested that Howie was having a very bad allergic reaction. I had always assumed he had allergies because of his skin, and sensitive stomach, but I had never before linked them to his nose.

Howie immediately began getting hot spots despite the constant flea baths. As he was being weaned off the steroids, I switched his food to Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Fish, which the kennel owner and the in-laws suggested to me. Howie's nose improved and stayed the health black nose it should have been all along, his hotspots went away, his skin is healthier, his coat shinier, and there have been no more bleeding episodes.

I was shocked that something so simple as changing his diet would be the solution I'd been searching for for years, and was similarly shocked that my own veterinarian couldn't figure that out to suggest to me.

So I've switched vets, and dog food.
Always make sure to have every part of your dogs health looked into when it comes to allergies.

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