My dog scratches non stop

Question
I have a pit bull who is a little over one years old. Im not sure of her vaccination history because shes a dog that I rescued. She seems to be in good health but she scratches all the time. she does not have flee's and whatever is bothering her is not bothering our other two dogs. I havnt noticed any dry or flaky skin, or any sort of rash, but bathing her does not help at all. Do you have any Ideas on what could be causing her relentless itching, or what i can do to help her?

Answer
Dogs that scratch like this are allergic. Most of the time it's fleas. Just because the other two dogs don't scratch doesn't mean there are no fleas. I am sure if you looked really closely you will find plenty of them.

Bathing is only going to make this worse. Bathing dries out their skin and makes it harder for them to battle the itches. She could be allergic to anything other than fleas or on top of fleas. She could have inhalant allergies, she could be allergic to your rugs or carpet or smoke in the house.

If it was food she would have more symptoms but sometimes food makes it worse. The major allergen for dogs in food is beef, wheat, dairy products, cheese, lamb and rice. Pork is also an allergen for some dogs.

Dogs with atopic (all over inhalant allergies) will scratch all the time, itch and have red and inflamed skin. Eventually they start to damage the skin.
Flea allergies do the same thing. A dog need only be bit by one flea to scratch for two weeks or more. So if she is getting bit daily she will scratch all the time.

If you have had this dog more than one day then she should have already been vaccinated by your vet and on heartworm prevention. That means rabies also.
She needs to have a little trip to the vet now and get a good look over as to what is causing this itchiness before her skin breaks down and you have a real mess on your hands.

You may also want to put her on a diet for sensitive skin or even a lamb and rice diet for a while to see if that helps.

If it's fleas, then the whole house and all the dogs need to be treated with a knock down spray, preferably one that will also kill eggs, larvae and adults.

Get some Ovitrol spray as it will do all of that. It has an IGR in it, an Insect Growth Regulator- which is what you need.

Here is a page about the life cycle of fleas:
http://www.ah.novartis.com/cab/en/dog_fleas_lifecycle.shtml

So start with the flea issue and then go from there.