Small flakes from my itchy dog!

[SundownWaterfowl]

Sounds like dry skin to me.

Get DermCaps, or the Derm Caps Liquid. You give it to them with their food. I used them on My miniature pinscher who had thin hair on her chest, and it was dry. After about 2-3 weeks on this her coat is nice and shiny and black, and the hair on her chest is growing in nice and thick.

 

[love-my-wolves]

Hello! As an employee for a vets office for over 5 years (and that by no means makes me an expert) the very first thing the vets ever tell anyone with your dogs issues is this: if it's not fleas, it's the food. I'm sure the food is a very good brand (I'm not familiar with the brand myself) but dog food is very diverse in the ingredients, and just one item on the list could cause itchy skin. Truely, it's just a matter of finding that one ingredient. Try corn first, it's the most common. I've heard of many dogs in my years who are allergic to chicken! But corn is the biggest problem. Try to find a food without the corn. Also, go to either your vet or a pet store and pick up some Omega 3 Fish Oil to put in his water/food. It is a pump, and it really helps with coat/shedding/dry skin. It's great!!!! Hope this helps!!!

 

[texasgirl]

I'm a huge proponent of EVO or at least any naturapet.com food.
I feed the EVO red meat because my dog has chicken allergies....she also has intolerance to wheat, corn, soy.
AFIK they have not ever been involved in a recall.

 

[spook]

Quote:
When you say about being allergic to chicken, Not the same thing, but it is, there are certain types of chicken that my friend can eat due to the wheat and gluten they feed the birds, why not with dogs and cats!

Sometimes yeast can be a problem, give acidophiles in yogurt (could be hard on pups system) or capsules.
That was a issue with our lab (no longer here) and simple yogurt was the cure. Also,possibly not enough exercise (forgive me) can have an affect as the oils are not being distributed out on the skin.

Friends of mine use the B.A.R.F diet, have had wonderful luck with it, gave her more time with rimerwiener that had cancer. (no guarantees) Has her new rimerwiener (I know I am misspelling that!!!!)
good luck

 

[freerange freaks]

I would have my vet do a skin biopsy or even just a scraping and use that as a starting point. Rule out all of the potential diseases first. Other things I would look at are...are there any pimply like marks on his skin (check inner thighs), how does his coat feel (is it coarse and brittle) and are there any parts of the coat that are thinning or even bald. If the results are neg., then I'd start looking into possible allergy related issues. I'm wondering if the sentinal would also take care of mites, I'm pretty sure it would so I'm kinda thinking that mange wouldn't be the case

How long ago did you deal with the fleas? I ask because of flea allergy dermatitis that can continue after there are no more fleas.

For those of you who think that Nutro is a poor choice in foods. My dogs ate it for years and were extemely competative sled dogs. My dogs can pull a fully packed sled 50 miles in four hours. I've also known very successful mushers that fed nothing but ol'Roy. Dogs are individuals and what works for one doesn't work for all. I don't think people should be made to feel guilty about not feeding their dog a "premium" brand of dog food. Do you buy your children "No Name" food products? We all do. Are they still healthy and happy? Of course they are.

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
The first major allergens to avoid are the grains and grain by products.

EVO rocks. Innova makes Evo. If I just had one dog instead of eight I'd feed EVO or one of these.

Wolf King offers a grain free product.
Archetype - offers both grain restricted and grain free diets.
I think solid gold now includes either grain free, or grains that tend to be less allergenic diets.

Switching to a common low allergy "rice" diet won't work if the dog is allergic to rice.

Many dogs aren't allergic to beef, because of all the chicken diets on the market - go figure. LOL

Pork based feeds are out there and work for some.

Eagle pack has EVERyTHING from low cost corn based to an awesome Super Premium - their Holistic Select is a very good diet.

Give any dog switching at LEAST six weeks to see the whole result. Early effects like more itching, loose or mucousy stools, brief 3-4 day flare of skin issues is NORMAL. You have to wait those out and see what six weeks or more brings you. I usually give a new feed 3-4 months. It can take a dog's body that long to shed accumulated allergens/toxins from the wrong foods, digest the food really well and thoroughly and then show the signs of recovery you need to see.

MAKE notes: before, during and at three months. Weight!, ears itching or not, skin itching or not, skin dry or greasy, coat dry, shedding, improved or not; tear stains or not (yep can be dietary at times), paw licking or not, nail chewing or not, red between pads or not.

In order to figure out how your dog does overall you have to be aware overall. Arm pits, belly color, rudy or reddish hair where a dog chews or licks. And scaling - flaking or eruptions on skin.

Food hopping only makes things worse. The dog develops a long term flare from food hopping.

Find a good food with limited ingredients and one or no grains. Stick to it for three or four months. Decide then based on your notes if there is decent improvement. A dog can continue to improve on a food for up to a year and more.

Finding the right diet is a lot like dental work. Unpleasant and too long no matter how long it lasts.

I too have a thousand dollar free dog. Thankfully allergic he isn't. Just everything else. LOL

The reason for limiting as much as possible the ingredients list is it's easier to find a food to switch to, if you need to. If one is chicken meal, turkey meal, rice, fish. Then the next time you avoid poultry meals and rice. I've never ever met a dog allergic to fish. Chicken yes, turkey yes, and rice yes.

Good luck.

You may never find the perfect diet but you will find something that's better.

 

[texasgirl]

Quote:
I don't think anyone said Nutro was a "poor" choice, they were giving other food suggestions to help the dog with a possible food allergy. I think most everyone understands the individual affect and benefit different food has on different dogs.

 

[Frogdogtimestwo]

My dog has itchy skin and will actually welt up on certain food, we have tried all the intermediate priced brands and the worse offender was the nutro ultra holistic (welts), then nutro max, and the nutro lamb and rice. Now he is doing well on Science diet original formula, which I have hated in the past but it seems to be working for him. If he starts having issues with this food I am going to try some of the others listed here. The quest has been frustrating but so worth it for his happiness. Good luck I know how miserable it can be to find a solution.
*edited to add the reason I tried all the nutro's first is that is all I have used successfully with my large breeds in the past. NEVER had an issue with that food until this guy. I have always been pleased with their coats and weights.

 

[warren]

My uncle used to feed his dogs on lungs. He got them from the butchers and boiled them. The stink was dreadful, but the dogs loved it and lived long and happy lives.
I noticed in the list of ingredients in a post above that buttermilk was listed. Why should a manufacturer put milk in dog food? Dogs would not ever drink cows milk in nature, or any sort of milk at all once weaned.

 

[walkswithdog]

What is right for one dog, isn't always right for another, which is what we were trying to say.

I've had dogs do totally well on low end foods.

But between training kennels, haning had over 70 dogs here, and classes of people and their dogs, and rearing severely ill and malnourished dogs, you figure out it's not a one-size-fits-all issue and what is good for one can literally be poison for another.

Nutrition matters. What a dog is sensitive as an INDIVIDUAL matters. Science Diet almost killed one of my dogs. It saved another.

I chose now, to use those feeds with limited ingredients and limited grains. Partly because I'm getting what I feel is more nutrition for my dollar rather than fillers. I'd feed Evo, or one of the all meat feeds if I could afford it. For eight, that's impractical. Fortunately I'm bringing up a bunch of chickens.

Enough to supplement with.

I chose to spend my money on feeds where the label isn't packed with misleading information, the splitting out of grain products, the use of ethoxyquine, soy or fillers and additives like DIGESTS which bother me.

I vote with my pocket book for the manufacturers I'm comfortable with.

There are LOTS of good foods, there are lots of dogs doing fine on feedstore and grocery store feeds.

It's what right for you and the dog you have before you.

I will say, having never fed my earliest dogs on the better foods, because they didn't exist, I didn't know how well a dog could do on the right food.

Even my Ruffian, fed most of her life on fairly high quality foods, improved drastically this last year when we let her switch to Innova. Doubled her coat, both in appearance and amount, trimmed her weight though it was higher calorie. She's 12. She's eaten good foods all her life. And here I find she'd have done better on Innova. Sigh.

Unless you do/have done feeding trials of other feeds. What is best is hard to know. And legitimate trials take months not days or weeks.

Patience and notes really help in the long run if you do have a dog with skin, ear, fur, paw licking, paw chewing or other allergy involved issues, including weight problems that don't seem to change even if you limit the amount of food. Even when you think you don't have issues. A feed trial of a more premium feed for six months can be a real eye-opener.