My name is Sam Meisler and I am small animal veterinarian and this is Toby. We see a lot of skin problems in our practice and the most common complaint is itchiness.
Now, itchiness and the pattern of itchiness can kind of give us a clue as far as to what is actually causing the problem. It is important to figure out what areas itch on your dog’s body the most. Typically, we see as far as itchiness with allergy problems particularly atopy or inhalant allergy is itchiness on the feet, lots of foot licking, sometimes around the face and sometimes even ear infections.
Flea allergy tends to manifest itself back here in this area. If you see a pattern of baldness or even itchiness right here, think flea allergy.
Now, flea allergy can also be a situation where you have foot licking and sometimes we’ll actually see itchiness underneath the tail around the anal area.
Scabies or mange which is a very contagious disease and it’s contagious to humans as well has its own unique pattern distribution as well. Although we can see it present in many, many different ways, typically it presents in terms of all four legs being very, very itchy, intensely itchy ears and the face and if you see that, definitely have your veterinarian, do a skin scarping and they can check for scabies mange.
Now, as far as the different patterns of itchiness that we talked about, we’ve talked about inhalant allergy or atopy, food allergy, flea allergy and scabies mange, those are just some of the brought areas of diseases that we can see in the dog as far as itchiness. Definitely see your veterinarian and have them do various tests to try and figure out exactly what it is but these patterns of itchiness give you a clue as to where to look first.
Now the review, we’ve talked about four basic patterns of itchiness caused by inhalant allergy or atopy, food allergy, flea allergy, and scabies mange.
Inhalant allergy or atopy is caused by breathing in inhalant allergens like pollen, just like we get hay fever from pollens. Dogs get itchy skin from pollens.
Food allergy is usually something they are allergic to in terms of protein or other substance. Typically the most common things are dairy or beef products because that is what dogs are fed a lot of.
Flea allergy; fleas can be brought in to the home from other dogs, from taking a dog for a walk and you can actually see them on the skin sometimes.
Scabies is actually caused by a mite that is very small causes intense itchiness and humans can pick up this mite as well. So, if you suspect that your dog may have scabies based on the pattern we talked about, definitely see your veterinarian right away.
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