[mamahen]

I am nearing the end of my rope with my cockapoo. He is a precious dog....great personality and very smart. I bought him from a breeder in Iowa. He is 5 1/2 years old. He has been scratching his entire life. He has had hundreds of ear infections. He chews on paws and legs. He developed a cataract in one eye when he was about 3 yrs old. He is nearly blind in that eye and has trouble fetching his ball and finding treats when we give them to him. He now has begun to scratch areas on his body until they are bloody and oozing yellow—infected. He has a scar now on his forehead (dark brown the size of a dime) from an infected wound he inflicted on himself. We have spent so much money on vet bills and have tried different foods, shampoos, steroids, etc. When he goes to the groomer he comes home and chews, licks, and scratches himself for several days. He will run around the room with his bottom crouched under. Once he had to go on an IV drip overnight at the vet because he seemed manic. We found that the groomer had nicked him on his underside...just a barely visible nick...and it drove him almost insane. I just found an other wound that is oozing yellow that he has developed from scratching. What to do? He is so miserable and I just cannot go on seeing him this way.

 

[Soo]

Wee soul. Im so sorry your dog is suffering in such a way. I'm not up on skin problems or diet but hopefully someone who is will see this and answer because I think Ive read about the natural diet being good for dogs with skin problems?

I hope someone has some help for you.

 

[Sezra]

Poor boy. If he is oozing yellow then the wounds are infected and you really need to get him to a vet. Have you tried antihistamines? Change of diet?

 

[Dylansmum]

I'm so sorry to hear about your problems. I'm no expert at all, but as you are obviously desperately in need of an improvement, have you tried a BARF diet? You say you have tried different foods, but is this one of them. If not, I would suggest that you give it a try immediately - you've nothing to lose and it's worth a shot. There is lots of information if you Google BARF, but initially you could start with 1 or 2 chicken wings twice a day or a chicken carcass a day. You will need to add other things such as a ground veg mix, raw egg, fish etc. There is a site www.barfworld.com who have a distributor in Iowa who I'm sure could help.
I'm not saying that this will be a cure, but it's really worth trying. It can certainly only be a benefit to your dog, even though it will take a little research on your part. I really hope that the condition improves.

 

[mum2bobs]

I posted this in another thread, but will repeat here. Hope it helps -

My last dog suffered from this so I understand how you feel. At times his feet would be sore raw and saw he literally couldn't walk on them unless he had some sort of protection on them, and for a while I did think that I might have to have him put to sleep as the suffering was too much.

I don't know what treatments you have your dog on but these are the things that I found worked for him.

Piriton - can be bought just over the counter at any chemist and worked well for reducing itchiness. He was a big lab type dog so was on 6 tablets a day but obviously that dose would be reduced for a smaller dog.

When things got really bad would also get antibiotics and anti inflammatories from the vets which eased things considerably.

CanAural ear drops regularly to keep ears clean and antibiotic drops from vets if they got really bad.

For his paws and tummy - Sudacreme and then kids socks on his paws kept in place with some velcro - believe it or not they were tolerated well and stopped his sore skin getting irritated by carpet fibres, grass etc.

Malaseb dog shampoo regularly and regular grooming.

Hypoallergenic diets (tried him on vegetarian dog food for a while which seemed to work well), NO treats, very careful with anything he ate as he seemed to react to lots of things badly.

For a while I even had him on completely home cooked food - mainly when he was having a flare up of symptoms - and would give him cooked fish, veggies and rice for a few days just to give his system a rest.

No cleaning products used on the floors - Shake n Vac, bleach, polishes etc were banned to the bin so he didnt walk on anything that could irritate his feet.

By doing all of the above his symptoms were more or less kept under control. We took him away camping and he was sitting outside the tent with pink kids socks on his feet and rapidly became the centre of attention

It was a pain in the bum at times doing all of the above, but worth it because it gave him a decent quality of life, kept the symptoms at bay or even totally free of them at times.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[colpa110]

How awful for you and your poor dog. I have an eight Month old Cocakpoo and she has also scratched from day one -not to the extent of your poor dog -yet. Did his condition deteriorate over a period of time?? I am scared that this is the future for my dog too. Has your vet tried Atopica it seems to have had good
results in some dogs.

 

[lady amanda]

That is very sad to read... I am also curious about what he is being fed as it all sounds allergy based to me.