Soft Coated Wheaten skin problems
 

My Wheaten Mohito and I moved to Mexico 2 years ago. He went from Canadian to tropical climate. He is now 3 and 1/2 years old. Moving here has changed all our routines...heat, food, salt water etc... I used to feed him Solid Gold Holistic dog food and he had never had any allergic symptoms. Once here though, the choices I had for dog food was reduced.

It started when he ate some supermarket dog food out of another dog´s bowl. He developed an ich as well as scabs and bumps. Then I ran out of Solid Gold and had to find a healthy alternative. I´ve tried Sicence Diet, Eukaneuba but both have not worked. He was treated by a vet and the sores disappeared. He has been on a mono diet for the last 2 years. A lamb and rice formula from Sam´s which was recommended. I changed vets cause i felt meds were just too much for him. Our new vet has prescribed baths 2 a week (alergroom and keratene) as well as sticking to the mono-diet. He is much better.

I now have a second dog, a kerry blue puppy, so Mohito sometimes steals some puppy food, and with that return the sores, itch and pimples (he sometimes smell bad too).

The vet says he is better, but I just can´t help feeling terrible for him...he now has his scabs again on his hind legs. And it seems his past scabs have remained to be black splotches on his skin, which I can see well when I bath him. He doesn´t scratch but I feel sometimes, when I pet him, the bumps and scabs. I still shampoo twice weekly, but if anyone out there has any other solutions...PLEASE LET ME KNOW....

Sorry, I have no advice. It must be terrible though to not know what is causing the skin problems.

Other than it still being a food issue, I'm not sure....maybe some others here will have some ideas.

If he's stealing the puppy food, you're probably going to end up having to switch the puppy to something both of them can tolerate.:shrug:

Yes, I agree with Prin. When I first posted that part wasn't there:o

That is a very good sign that he is allergic to the puppy food.

Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear about your problems. Can you provide us with a list of all the dog food brands that are available to you?

My 4 year-old Simon also suffers from a similar skin condition as of late. It started about a year and a half ago when we moved into a new condo. We'd assumed it was because our old home has hard wood with limited wool carpets. Our new place has new carpet almost everywhere. Since he's on a premium allergy formula of Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance dry food, I never thought it could have been the food. Sometimes I give him half a Benlyn to relieve severe itching, but I too am looking for a more long-term but gentle solution - besides reflooring in hardwood if avoidable!

I use an iodine shampoo each week, but I'm not sure of it's effectiveness. We were recently on holiday for 2 weeks and Simon was at my cousin's kennel. He came home with what seemed like nearly completely clear skin, but after a month his skin is showing some bumps and skin scabs. They clear up and leave the dark skin and eventually clear up to his normal pink colour. And the cycle continues.

Any thoughts?

Koolade, have you taken the dog to the vet for his problem?
because you are referring to it as a cycle , suggests that it could be an auto immune disease

actually yes, he just came back with a clean bill of health last week. they've given him antibotics for it in the past to see if it will clear it up, but it returns. when i expressed dislike of constant antibotics, they didn't have any other suggestions. they seem to think that it's an allergy. our groomer recomended the iodine shampoo. i'm not sure what else to do.

Have you tried a diet change? What is he eating? Did you do any blood tests?

he's on a premium allergy formula of [URL="http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/"]Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance[/URL] dry food. I think it may be organic as well.

What should I be asking the vet to test for? As I said they don't seem to know what's wrong, except for an "allergy".

I would get all the hormones checked first and a general blood screen, just to see how everything is doing internally. If it is an autoimmune disease, I would imagine that the white blood cell count would be pretty high...

But since you say he came home fine and then started to break out, have you looked at maybe household products? (Like fabric softeners, detergents, cleaners, etc) Could be that he is allergic to one of those, in addition to a food allergy.

Your vet should at least do a skin scrape and check to see if a bacterial or mange(there are a couple of types)


With an auto immune diseases they would have to do a skin tissue biopsy and send it out for testing they could try an ANA bloodtest but in many forms of auto immune disease it comes back negative, there is no cure if this is the case and has to be managed life long with drugs

well, here's the thing. He's 4.5 yrs and for the first 3 years we had hardwood throughout and the occassional wool area rug. 1.5 years ago we moved into a new condo with new carpets everywhere. This is around the time his skin condition began.

When we were were recently away for 2 weeks and he was at my cousin's kennel, he seemed to have cleared quite a bit. After a few weeks back at home, the condition reappeared.

so, sounds like I should go back to the vet and ask about
- auto immune diseases
- a skin scraping
- blood test, and
- hormone levels test.

You'd think our vets would be telling US what it could be. I'd always thought that it was allergies and they've never corrected me or suggested anything other than optional antibotics to "clear him up" but it's not a long-term solution and it's certainly not investigative.

thanks for all the information and suggestions!

Available food in Mexico RE: Mohito
 

The only dog foods available here are:

Royale Canine ALLERGIC
Eukanuba ALLERGIC
Dog Chow and all supermarket cheap brands. ALLERGIC


Exceed Sam´s Club Lamb & Rice is the only one he has no reaction with...but I started giving him omega & vitamin e capsules everyday for the past month, and i´m starting to see a major improvement. He also has been staying out of the puppy food...The shampoos (allergroom and allermyl by virbac) have also helped a lot. I hope this lasts...

If there really aren't any other foods around, and he's still having trouble, you might have to try a home-cooked or raw diet.

Just back from the vet, abd Simon is a very healthy Wheaten. He said he's rarely seen auto immune or mange in a show dog and confirmed it's just seborrea.

missymohito, this will probably help you with your Wheaties scabby skin. Try an Omega 3,6 drops mixture. I just ordered this stuff online from Miami from allivet.com. It's called Homeopet Skin & Itch Relief.