This is why we can't have nice things (Or, Napi goes to the ER)

Yesterday around noon, my fiance texted me: Napi had some hives along his sides. I told him to give some benadryl, which cleared up the hives. Napi was fine for the rest of the afternoon. I left around 6pm to do a private training consult, and when I got home again around 830pm, the hives were back, and worse, he was acting uncomfortably itchy.

I gave another dose of benadryl and the itching subsided, but the hives didn't. I figured we were in for a vet visit, but wanted to avoid the emergency vet because of Napi's stress/reactivity/aggression/whatever you want to call them issues. I know and trust our regular vet (Lake Harriet in Minneapolis- they are AWESOME for stressy dogs), but emergency vets are always a crapshoot.

But middle of the night, Napi woke me up by rubbing all over me, breathing heavy and fast, and looking like this:

Swollen and miserable.

Yup. We went to the emergency vet. He got a shot of benadryl and steroids, and sent home with a week's worth of steroids too. (Actually, I'm just using Maisy's leftover pred... the vet was a bit confused by the well-stocked pharmacy I have, lol.)

He was surprisingly not awful. He did need a muzzle, and he did growl and lunge at the techs/vet initially, but by the end, he was... well not loud and not bitey or even wearing a muzzle! Which is impressive for him!

We don't know what he reacted to, but the hives, swelling, and itching are gone tonight, and I'm very happy for that. I'll admit that before Cesar and I moved in together, I secretly wished he didn't have Napi, but now? I wouldn't give him up for anything. I love him so so so much, and I am so glad he's okay.

So You Think Your Dog Has Allergies, Part 3: Treatment

So your dog has allergies. Not only does he show the classic signs and symptoms, but you’ve also done some work to determine what he’s allergic to. But what do you do with that information? And how can you give the poor guy some relief? Today’s post will discuss just that.

My go-to treatments.

Don’t Touch!
One of the easiest ways to treat allergies is to avoid the allergens. This is especially easy if your dog has a food allergy- just don’t feed him that food! This will mean that you will read labels like a hawk- on everything. One of Maisy’s allergies is to eggs, and let me tell you, they are everywhere. Nothing goes in her mouth unless I’ve read the label or made it myself. Treats at the pet store or drive through are turned down, much to Maisy’s disappointment.

But other things are harder to avoid. You can’t exactly keep your dog in a bubble, but for a dog allergic to grass and trees, you might be tempted to do just that. However, you can help reduce your dog’s exposure to environmental allergies simply by keeping clean. Dust regularly, wash your pup’s bedding more than usual, and if he’s especially sensitive, invest in some HEPA filters.

Don’t forget to keep your dog clean, either- wiping down his feet and belly after he’s been outside can help cut down on his itchiness. During peak allergy season, Maisy gets a weekly bath to catch the rest. If you do this, be sure to use a gentle shampoo (I like Cloud Star’s Buddy Wash, although I could do without the scent).

Treat the Symptoms
No matter how hard you try, though, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to prevent all exposure. Maisy is allergic to human dander, and I just don’t know a way to protect her from me. As a result, she receives a daily antihistamine. Medications like Benadryl, Claritin, and Zyrtec are generally considered safe for dogs, but you should talk to your vet to get the correct dosage and make sure the medicine is right for your dog. This is especially important if your dog takes another medication (like Maisy does); sometimes there are weird interactions to be aware of.

Corticosteroids can be helpful for dogs with more serious allergies, or during an especially bad allergy season. According to the April 2011 issue of the Whole Dog Journal, corticosteroids tend to be the most effective. That said, there are also some dangers associated with them; in the article, Nancy Kerns points out that they can leave dogs vulnerable to infections and metabolic imbalances, and long-term use can result in more serious problems like liver disease, diabetes, and adrenal suppression. Personally, I prefer to avoid steroid use; I’ve taken them for my asthma, and boy did they make me cranky. Maisy, with her reactivity, does not need that.

Allergy Shots
Allergy shots- also known as immunotherapy- can go a long way to helping reduce your dog’s allergies. Nancy Kerns’ article Itching to Be Well confirmed that most dogs who receive this therapy improve. Some even recover completely. Immunotherapy does need to be customized to your dog’s specific allergies, though, which requires that you do the skin tests instead of the cheaper and easier blood tests. It also requires you to give your dog a small shot once or twice a week for months, and possibly longer. This can be costly, and it’s definitely more invasive than either avoidance or symptomatic treatment.

Holistic Options
The least controversial holistic option is to supplement your dog’s diet with fatty acid supplements, like fish oil. In Itching to be Well, Nancy Kerns quotes a veterinarian who shares that the fatty acids will go into the skin layers, which helps improve the barrier and decrease inflammatory cells. These tend to work best for mildly allergic dogs, or in conjunction with other treatment. Other options include the use of probiotics, acupuncture, homeopathy, and glandular supplements, all of which I know very little about.


Personally, I manage Maisy’s allergies through avoidance to the foods she’s allergic to, regular baths in the summer, wiping off her feet, legs, and belly when some comes inside, and a daily antihistamine (Claritin). Maisy also gets fish oil daily. This has been very successful so far, although this year looks like it will be a doozy of an allergy season, so we may be changing things up soon...

What about you? What do you do to treat your dog’s allergies? I know there are a lot of holistic treatments, although I haven’t used any myself. I’d love to hear from others about their experiences!

So You Think Your Dog Has Allergies, Part 2: Diagnosis

In my last post, I discussed the types of allergies dogs typically have- flea, environmental, and food- as well as the typical symptoms. These symptoms can range from irritating to painful for your dog, so it’s important that you treat them. That said, it is tricky to treat them if you don’t know what they are, so today’s post will discuss some ways you can determine what your dog’s allergies are.

The first step in diagnosing allergies is to visit your vet to rule out other health problems. There are a number of other issues that can mimic the itching typical of allergies (and the not-so-typical symptoms like GI distress).

Veterinary Tests
Your vet can perform a few tests to determine what your dog is allergic to. There are two basic types that I’m aware of: a blood test that can detect antibody levels, and a skin or intradermal test.

Blood tests are relatively simple; your vet simply draws a vial or two of blood and sends it into a lab to be analyzed. The Whole Dog Journal’s April 2011 article Itching to be Well recommends doing the blood test at the end of peak allergy season- typically the fall in North America- as this is when antibody levels are highest. There will probably be some false positives or negatives, which means that while this test can be helpful, it may get some things wrong.

The skin/intradermal test requires shaving your dog’s belly/side, injecting small amounts of various allergens, and then reading the reaction. It is more time consuming, expensive, and stressful for your dog, but it is also more accurate.

It should be noted that neither test is very reliable for foods- the Whole Dog Journal article cites a 30% accuracy rate- so take those results with a grain of salt. The best way to test your dog for food allergies is through the use of a food elimination trial.

Food Elimination Trials

This is what I feed now, but look at the ingredients below; 

despite the high quality, it's entirely inappropriate for a food elimination trial.

When you do a food elimination trial, you feed your dog a diet with one protein source, and one carbohydrate source, and nothing else. Both the protein and carb should be novel- something you’ve never fed before. With the explosion in the pet food market, it is getting more difficult to do this. Some of the proteins that used to be recommended- like lamb and duck- are pretty standard now days.

It’s the “nothing else” that’s even trickier, though, because everything you feed your dog- from food to treats to chewies- needs to be of either that protein or that carb, and you’ll need to be vigilant to make sure he doesn’t sneak any scraps, or mug a friendly pet store clerk for treats.

I personally recommend using a fresh, homemade (raw or cooked) diet during this time. It will not be a balanced diet, but if your dog has previously had good nutrition, it is highly unlikely any nutritional deficiencies will show up during the relatively short period you'll need for testing. The problem with using kibble is that there are just so many ingredients in them, and your dog might be allergic to any of them.

If you really want to use kibble, feeding a prescription diet for allergies is probably your best bet. These diets typically work by using hydrolyzed proteins, which are proteins that have been broken down molecularly so they are so small that the dog’s body shouldn't react to it. As a side note, don't be fooled by packages that claim to be limited ingredient diets or hypoallergenic. You will need to read the labels for yourself to see exactly what's in that food. 

No matter what you choose to feed, you must feed it exclusively for a minimum of 8 to 12 weeks. This allows your dog’s body to rid itself of the histamines from previous foods that might have been causing a problem. If, at the end of this time, your dog is still itchy, you can conclude one of two things: either your dog’s itchiness is not due to food, or you had the spectacularly bad luck to choose a food that your dog was allergic to. I’ve even heard of some rare cases where a dog has reacted to hydrolyzed protein diets. Switch diets and try again, waiting for 8 to 12 weeks before moving to the next step.

Food Challenge
Simply feeding the elimination diet is only half the task, though. Now you must challenge your dog’s diet. It is important that you continue to feed nothing but the novel protein and carb, however, you will add one single food to your dog’s diet for one week. If your dog is allergic to the new item you’ve added, you’ll probably see the recurrence of symptoms within a week, and sometimes sooner.

If your dog is still itch-free at the end of the week, you can safely assume your dog is not allergic to that item. Continue to add a single item at a time weekly, taking note of what causes your dog to react, and what doesn’t. Soon, you should have a list of your dog’s food allergies.

Keep Notes!
Of course, it’s always possible that you’ll introduce a new food item at the same time your dog is exposed to fleas or mold or pollen. That’s why simply keeping a log of your dog’s symptoms, noting if there is any correlation with potential allergens, can be very helpful. Weather.com has an app you can use to determine different pollen levels in your area each day. Make a note of which ones are displayed on days your dog is itchy. Over time you might start to see some trends.

My Experiences
I spent close to six months trying different foods with Maisy. She remained itchy for most of the trial, although she did react quite strongly when we tried a lamb-based kibble. Ultimately, I got so frustrated that I had the blood test done (it was January in Minnesota, so my vet did not want to have to shave her belly for the intradermal).

The results showed that Maisy is allergic to both lamb (which I’d already figured out) and eggs (which I’ve subsequently tested and confirmed), as well as a variety of grasses, trees, weeds, wool, mold, and the mind-boggling human dander. Although it is quite possible that there were some errors or omissions (remember, the blood test is prone to false positives and negatives), this got us close enough. Despite the poor accuracy rate for food allergies, they proved to be correct for us. Since Maisy’s allergies are fairly mild, our treatment course was the same, regardless of whether or not every single environmental item was accounted for.


But we’ll talk about treatments in the next post. For now, I’d love to hear about your experiences diagnosing your dog’s allergies. How did you do it? Was it frustrating… or easy? Would you do anything differently? And what is your dog allergic to? Comment below!

So You Think Your Dog Has Allergies, Part 1: Symptoms and Types

When Maisy was just a wee thing, she began chewing on her legs. A quick internet search suggested that it might be food allergies, so I switched her food. And again. And again. What started as just a bit of itchiness evolved into almost a year of frustration.

As it turns out, the subject of canine allergies is complex, and internet advice is often simplistic and lacking vital information. That’s why I decided to tackle a three-part series on the topic. Of course, I am not a vet, so this is not medical advice. Instead, it is a sharing of information from one owner of a dog with allergies to another. If you think your dog might have allergies, I highly recommend you schedule an appointment with your vet because there are a number of other skin problems that can look like allergies but are not.

Signs Your Dog Has Allergies
So, what do allergies look like in dogs? Well, unlike in humans, dogs typically don’t have nasal congestion. Runny noses, sneezing, wheezing, or eye discharge may be a symptom of allergies, but it probably isn’t. See your vet. Instead, dogs with allergies are itchy. What you will see is excessive scratching, licking, and chewing. This typically happens on the feet, face, and groin, but may show up anywhere.

Unfortunately, these behaviors can result in secondary problems, most often skin infections or ear infections. Before we got a handle on Maisy’s allergies, she chewed off most of the fur on her front legs, and had some scabs. It was pretty ugly, actually, and we did need to treat her with antibiotics to help clear it up.

Her left leg is bare and the skin is being damaged because she was chewing it so much.

Allergy Cause #1: Flea Bites
The most common of these causes is flea bites. According to research cited in the April 2011 Whole Dog Journal article Itching to be Well by Nancy Kerns, approximately 40% of dogs have an allergy to fleas. Of course, if a dog is bit by a flea, it’s going to itch either way. However, a dog who is truly allergic will have an overreaction. If you have found only a few fleas, but your dog has widespread redness- or worse, oozing sores- it’s likely he’s allergic. The bad news is that dogs who suffer from a flea allergy tend to get worse throughout their lives.

Allergy Cause #2: Environmental
Environmental allergies happen when a dog has an itchy reaction to something he has either inhaled or been transcutaneously exposed to. Things like mold, dust, and pollen are common, although poor Maisy is also allergic to- are you ready?- human dander. (Yes, that's possible. Yes, I cried when I found out.)

According to the Whole Dog Journal article, approximately 10% to 15% of dogs have an environmental allergy. 80% of these dogs will also have a flea bite allergy (for once, Maisy has beaten the odds!). If your dog has an environmental allergy, it’s highly likely you’ll know it while he’s still young- 75% of dogs will show symptoms before three years of age, although the first year tends to be fairly mild.

Allergy Cause #3: Food
Food allergies are actually quite rare, although the exact prevalence is contested. A conservative estimate is that 1% to 5% of dogs have food allergies, possibly up to 10%, but the Whole Dog Journal reviewed research that suggests up to 43% of dogs are sensitive to some food item. 43% of these dogs will also have another type of allergy.

Food allergies are unique in that they typically affect more than just the skin. 10 to 15% of dogs will also have gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, excessive gas, and cramping, and a dog with food allergies might also be affected in the respiratory tract or central nervous system. This means that diagnosis can be tricky; you definitely want to visit your vet.

Although food allergies can begin at any time in life, generalized itchiness that begins before six months of age is very probably caused by food. This is absolutely true for Maisy- she was right around five or six months when we first noticed the excessive itching. Of course, this was complicated by the fact that her birthday was in the fall, meaning that Maisy hit her six month birthday at the height of allergy season- the spring.


So, how did I determine what her allergies were? Well, it was an incredibly frustrating process. I learned a lot during it, though, and in my next post, I’ll share some information that will helpfully make the process easier for you. Part three will discuss some of the treatment options available.

Until then, I’d love to hear from my readers. Do your dogs have allergies? Do you know what they’re allergic to? What symptoms did they have?