feels good to be scratched

Question
QUESTION: Besides having the over active oil glands my dog also feels the need to be scratched. The most sensitive places are on her back and then her face and chest. I have changed her diet pedigree, dry and canned to blue buffalo sweet potato etc.,dry and canned venison. cost a lot more but i do feel like it helped a little in both the itch and the oil. Are these two problem related or is it allergies or what.    Thank you    Craig and Montery

ANSWER: Well all dogs loved to be scratched Craig, not just yours. What makes you think her oil glands are overactive anyway? She may be itchy and that can be from her food, so it is good that you are getting her on a better diet.

Feeding her Pedigree will almost guarantee that she has a bad coat. We have actually seen dogs get very ill from living on that food.

Blue Buffalo is an okay but very unproven diet. There is no information on feeding trials which means they have no idea if it is good for your dog over the long haul. They can formulate a food to meet the AAFCO requirements but that doesn't mean anything if it isn't tried and true and field fed.

If you truly want to do the best thing for your dog, get her on some Science Diet for sensitive skin and give it a one month trial. It takes that long for any diet change to take affect in the body.
It is cheaper per feeding than any other premium food out there.
With its high digestibility that means less stool in the yard to clean up and more nutrients going into your dog.

Another thing is fixed formulation. That means that they use the same formula for each batch of food. The ONLY diet left that uses fixed formulation now is SD. Iams used to, but stopped and no other food on the market uses it. They all use an open formulation. What that means is that what ever is cheapest on the docks that day is what goes into the food. So that is another reason I am leery of Blue Buffalo. I have been to the web site and looked all over the place for more in-depth information on this food but they are not providing it.

You think that Blue Buffalo is mostly chicken because it is the first thing on the list, but if you knew how to really read a label you would see that that is not really the case.

This food is mostly carbs and they are not from chicken.
Whole Ground Brown Rice, Whole Ground Barley, Oatmeal, Rye, Whole Potatoes- these are the third through the sixth ingredient, but by sheer amount and weight there is more grain in this food then meat. This is a trick that is used by the grocery store brand foods. It looks good, and since the majority of the consumers cannot tell what is on a label, it works.

But enough of the diet lesson. The main thing you want to do is improve your dog's diet and her coat. If so, Sensitive Skin diet from Science Diet will work well for her. You should see an improvement in her coat in 3-4 weeks. If not, then take the bag in for a full refund. Only Science Diet give that 100% money back guarantee.

If you feed it according to her weight as it is stated on the bag, and feed with an 8 oz measuring cup so as not to measure it wrong, then your cost of feeding her will be about 41 cents a feeding, depending on her size.

Make sure you transition her slowly to this food over a seven day period. That is very important. Once she is on it, don't feed her any other food mixed with it unless it's SD canned food.

I hope that this helps. You can also try adding essential fatty acids to her diet that she is on now but with the Science Diet you would be spared that extra expense because it is already in the food.
Let me know how it goes for her after three weeks.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks so much for the advice and I will try the SD food next month. I just purchased another bag of the blue buffalo. The reason I suspected the active oil gland is that I could bath her one day and in a couple of days later you could see and feel the oil. When I was petting her side by her front leg, It felt real oily like it was dripping out sorta say. Anyway I will try the science diet the next bag I buy for her skin and hope it does the trick Thank you for the information Ill let you know if it works if your still out there. Monterey thanks you

Answer
I will be here Craig. You want some food from the old bag to mix in with the new anyway.

There are a lot of skin conditions that are not food related so if she is that bad you might want to get her in for a good check up also.
Dog's don't have oil glands the way that some animals have scent glands so it sounds like she is having an overall skin disorder.

That is why I think a trip to the vet is forthcoming along with a change in diet.
Please let me know how she does and tell Monterey she is welcome!