Dog Allergies

If you’ve stumbled on my blog looking for ideas or advice about how to deal with your allergy to your beloved family pet – you’re in the wrong place. If you’re looking to hear someone’s story about a dog with allergies? I’m your girl.

My dog has severe allergies. What is she allergic to? Everything. Dust, pollen, grass, dander, chicken, beef, pork, corn, wheat, dairy, egg, peanut butter, rubber, fleas and I think just air in general to name a few. She suffers from seasonal flank alopecia, persistent ear infections, red droopy goopy eyes, a chin that abscesses when it’s had too much contact with grass or pollen, the area between the pads of her feet get inflamed – and all of this is compounded by her hypo immune system.

What to do? Allergy shots of steroids? She’s allergic to too many things to make the shots effective. Benadryl? Works for some dogs but apparently not mine because her system is so out of whack. We’ve completely altered her diet over the last 12 months removing her favorite rawhide chews and per our vet’s advice we give her a restricted diet of duck and potato (only!) food. We give her frequent baths with hypoallergenic shampoo and flush her ears almost weekly. She has been doing so well and her bald spots from last year filled in nicely with a beautiful coat of winter fur…

Right now my poor dog is in hell. Allergy season is in full flame on the trees in our backyard. My beautiful Mulberry tree which provides me with such amazing shade and privacy is literally raining yellow dust and pollen. I’ve vacuumed up enough tumble weeds of her lost fur to make a winter coat for several other smaller dogs. And that’s just from today’s vacuuming. Tomorrow will produce the same.

We had excellent success last summer with a doggie drug called Atopica – but at $300 a month we had to stop. If anyone in this house should be sporting a $300 drug habit it should be me! Kidding of course. We have no pet insurance (get it if you can!) and if our kids didn’t love the dog so so so very much (and maybe me too) I would have sent her along to the folks at Lab Rescue long ago.

But alas, we do love her and she really is a part of our family. So for the next few weeks (maybe months?) I’ll be up to my armpits in dog baths and homeopathic approaches to curing her dog allergies. The things we do for unconditional love….