My dog who has had no problems with fleas or allergies his whole life started chewing a huge hotspot around October, the original problem was fleas. After a trip to the vet and some antibiotics and prednisone, he started to heal. The frontline hasn't been keeping the fleas off, and the all natural sprays weve used as well as the flea powder have been useless. It's been on and off all winter but in the past 2 weeks has gotten much MUCH worse. He has to wear a cone constantly and if I take it off he begins chewing his butt/tail immediately until he bleeds.

I know you guys love your dogs as much as I love mine, any ideas on what would help? I finally got a precription for Trifexis, it's my last ditch effort to try and fix this. We haven't been seeing fleas but I don't know what else would be causing it. He's never had food allergies but we tried changing his food just to cover all our bases and it didn't help. Has anyone else tried Trifexis?

Sounds strange, but try using baking soda instead of flea powder. At $1/lb from most Dollar Stores, its a bargain. It'll smother any fleas and dry out their eggs within a few hours, is totally non-toxic, and will relieve the itching.

Search " baking soda fleas dogs" for an explanation.

In the "Olden days" baking soda paste was used for relieving inching and oozing from measles and many contact irritants like poison ivy. When one of our cats started scratching herself raw, a baking soda/water solution was what I used to stop it. 1T soda /8 oz warm water, and you have to reapply it several times a day until the woulds heal completely. (It should work faster on a dog; dogs don't spend hours every day grooming themselves.)

BTW Frontline isn't a repellent. It won't keep fleas away from your dog, just kill them within 12 hours after they try to use your dog as a host (and food). If you're home or vehicle has a flea infestation, they will keep coming back to the dog.

Fleas can jump incredible distances. You may need to do pest control on any carpeting and upholstered furniture near where the dog roams. Baking soda and salt is one way to do this.

My dog who has had no problems with fleas or allergies his whole life started chewing a huge hotspot around October, the original problem was fleas. After a trip to the vet and some antibiotics and prednisone, he started to heal. The frontline hasn't been keeping the fleas off, and the all natural sprays weve used as well as the flea powder have been useless. It's been on and off all winter but in the past 2 weeks has gotten much MUCH worse. He has to wear a cone constantly and if I take it off he begins chewing his butt/tail immediately until he bleeds.

I know you guys love your dogs as much as I love mine, any ideas on what would help? I finally got a precription for Trifexis, it's my last ditch effort to try and fix this. We haven't been seeing fleas but I don't know what else would be causing it. He's never had food allergies but we tried changing his food just to cover all our bases and it didn't help. Has anyone else tried Trifexis?


Talk to your vet about giving your dog Benadryl. Vets commonly recommend plain 'ol over the counter Benadryl (Costco sells a generic version) for dogs who are itching. I keep Benadryl in Gidget's first aid kit.

1 miligram of Benadryl per pound of dog. Benadryl comes in 25mg tablets so that's two for my Samoyed, Gidget. Twice daily, maybe three times if your vet says that is okay. My vet says dogs react to Benadryl differently than people - Benadryl does not make dogs drowsy.

Benadryl is also good to have in hand in the event your dog ever has an allergic reaction to a bee sting, etc. Also for swelling after a vaccine reaction.

How old is your dog? As they age, allergies (inhalant and food) can become a problem that you did not have to deal with when they were young.

My vet prescribes Temaril-P when Gidget's allergies are particularly bad (she had three allergy-induced ear infections last Aug-October).

A lot of dogs (and peops) in the DC area are having an unusually tough time with allergies this mild winter. The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang recently ran this bar graph for January showing astronomical pollen counts, especially for mold.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/a-groundhog-day-pollen-report-6-more-weeks-of-sneezing/2012/02/02/gIQAaHHkkQ_blog.html


A lot of people all over the country have been observing that usually reliable flea preventatives are failing. Gidget's failed for the first time ever last summer and now I've got her on a monthly tablet (AcuGuard) that kills fleas and flea eggs within 30 minutes. My vet has her dogs on it.

http://www.vethical.com/acuGuard.html


To treat hot spots, my vet has me keep Gold Bond Medicated Powder in Gidget's first aid kit.

http://www.goldbond.com/original-strength-body-powder.html


Good luck to you and your pup! It's hard to see them miserable.

:-)

Thanks for all the replies! I started Bear on Trifexis, which from their webpage sounds very similar to AcuGuard, and it was a success! No more chewing, normal amount of scratching and no more cone of shame :-D Unfortunately the fleas have migrated and now my boyfriends two dogs (who are currently on Frontline) have been biting and scratching like crazy. For Bear though this has been a huge relief, Trifexis was sort of the last ditch effort before I went to the vet for allergy testing. We live near DC so we've had a mild winter as well.

Now for my next problem, our usually very well behaved dogs have been starting fights at the leash free dog park lately. They have decided to form a pack so if any 1 of them growls or barks at another dog, the other 2 jump in to help, and gang up on the unsuspecting dog. No dog has been hurt but the bullying needs to stop. Any help would be appreciated! I'm hoping once the warmer weather comes we will be hiking and kayaking more, the dogs will get more exercise and the fights will stop.

I was using Frontline for a while, mostly because it was available cheaper at Costco...but it really wasn't working. I switched to Trifexis and it works great. Sounds like your dog developed a flea allergy, which is common when a dog has struggled with fleas for a bit. Once they get this sensitive to them, it only takes one flea to drive your dog insane and hence the raw hotspots. Properly dealing with the fleas on other animals regularly around your dog is a must as well - Trifexis may kill the fleas but that doesn't mean they won't get them at least for the short-term from other animals around them. Sounds like there are a couple other dogs on inferior meds, so you should encourage their owners to upgrade their treatment. Also, any cats in the house will bring back fleas as well and they should be treated...cats are always thrilled to get flea treatment ;-)

Our boxer has been really sensitive to the Northeast ever since we moved here. Our vet prescribed hydroxyzine to help with the itching. It is similar to benadryl and can be given 3 times daily. He is also on K9 Advantix and has only had flea issues once in the last 6 years. Sounds like you have that figured out, though.

For your next question, are your pups spayed/neutered? If not, that could be an issue, if so, my only advice would be to call Caesar Milan...

Good luck!

. . . Now for my next problem, our usually very well behaved dogs have been starting fights at the leash free dog park lately. They have decided to form a pack so if any 1 of them growls or barks at another dog, the other 2 jump in to help, and gang up on the unsuspecting dog. No dog has been hurt but the bullying needs to stop. Any help would be appreciated! I'm hoping once the warmer weather comes we will be hiking and kayaking more, the dogs will get more exercise and the fights will stop.

Dogs will always form packs, and any solo dog will be challenged to establish its position relative to each of the pack members - including you.

If you, as the pack leader do this first, you let your pack know that you don't regard the "alien" dog as a threat. That lets them know what level of aggression is accessible.

When you treat for fleas, you need to treat your dogs as well as where your dogs are: indoors and outdoors. For this, we use food-grade diatomaceous earth in and around our home (we live on a 15 acres farm so our hens and rooster mainly take care of the bugs outside, but you never know. We are, after all, in Georgia.)

When you use food-grade diatomaceous earth, keep in mind it's an irritant so you might want to wear glasses/goggles as well as a mask to keep from breathing it in. Don't let that scare you. Baby powder is considered an irritant as well.

FGDE (food-grade Diatomaceous Earth) will kill every insect. REMEMBER THIS because it means it kills bad and good insects to use it sparingly. We dust it around the exterior of our house as well as our deck area, and then we dust the chickens with it as well. We *can* use it on our dogs, but one of our dogs should live in a plastic bubble due to her allergies so there's no point in testing it to see if it helps or hinders. In our home, we will move the dogs outside and put it around their bed area and the rug (since we have hardwood) and then vacuum it up.

What FGDE does is acts as a dehydrater for insects' exoskeletons. It makes tiny cuts in the exoskeleton and then sucks out the moisture from the insects' system. It does kill fleas. It does kill ticks. But, again, it kills good bugs, too. So use it sparingly.

As for the dog parks....I absolutely REFUSE to take my dogs to them. I have friends bring their dogs over to socialize with ours, but after nearly having my pit bulls' ear ripped off when she was trotting over to me and then almost getting a broken nose from some moron's untrained Labradoodle knocking me over when I went to pick up poop, I said "absolutely not." The reason you stated is another reason we don't go to dog parks.

Just remember you need to retreat for fleas. Check the specific treatment you are using, it should tell you when to repeat it. This makes sure it kills anything that was leftover from the last batch (some treatments only kill live fleas, so you have to repeat during the life cycle to catch the eggs as they hatch, etc). And flea collars don't work, so don't bother. Cut it up and put it in the dog's bed, but that's about the onlu use we've found for them.

I'll use Trifexis every month from now on, it's unfortunately on the expensive side, but at least it will cover heartworm too. Here in a couple weeks once it warms up we have dog friendly flea spray ready to spray the whole yard as well.

2 of the dogs are neutered. The youngest one is going to be neutered this spring. It's hard to always go up to a dog first at a leash free dog park, our dogs are always going to run up to the new dog before we would be able to get there.

sometimes they need to have an allergy shot from dr... my family has corgis and they are notorious for hot spots... allergy shots always stopped them.. GL

As for the dog parks....I absolutely REFUSE to take my dogs to them. I have friends bring their dogs over to socialize with ours, but after nearly having my pit bulls' ear ripped off when she was trotting over to me and then almost getting a broken nose from some moron's untrained Labradoodle knocking me over when I went to pick up poop, I said "absolutely not." The reason you stated is another reason we don't go to dog parks.


Ditto - no dog parks for Gidget, either. And she'd rather be on a walk or, better yet, dogscootering or bikejoring.


Video of the Gidg pulling:

http://www.viddler.com/v/e2198b2a

http://www.viddler.com/v/b677b9e1

www.dogscooter.com


:-)