Great Dane Skin Problems

Question
QUESTION: I Have a beautiful Fawn Boy, 2 years old. We have been struggling with skin problems since he was about 8 months old. He was diagnosed with OCD at 6 months. Only his left shoulder. The operation was a huge success. Our vet put him on GCS, which I must say is a great product. About 2 months after the op, he started itching,the scratching & biting got so bad that he eventually developed a a secondary infection as a result. He was losing hair and was looking awful. He was on antibiotics 2 courses.... with a dose of 5x 5mg Prednisone daily. The moment we stopped the cortisone, he would be itchy all over again. Didn't matter what we did, it just seemed like the situation was getting worse. The area around his eyes were so itchy, he kept rubbing his face up against us, bending his lower body with one paw in mid air wanting to scratch.  We were at the vet every 2nd week for follow ups. We spent most of that year visiting the vet. The Skin Biopsy was inconclusive. She suggested we put him on a sensitive diet, which didn't help, we tried various anti allergy foods.... didn't help. He was on special oil supplements - nothing changed. His bed cloths gets washed twice a week in a hot wash, so we knew it wasn't that, but we went and bought him a new 3/4 bed anyway, just to be safe. We replaced everything.... duvet inner, bought Anti Allergy Pillows new bed covers.... still no change in his condition. They (we have a bull terrier girl) get their Flea Control every month & we deworm him every 3 months. He's never had a tick or flea on him... ever. He sleeps indoors, spends most of his time in the house. He doesn't get bathed so much because he is terrified of water, don't ask me why... he's  just petrified when it comes to bathing him. He was on Royal Canin as a pup, after his OCD thing we changed his food to Hills (he hated it) then we switched to Eukanuba, which they seem to enjoy. He always had cow patchy poo, we didn't know any better, till I read online (www.greatdanelady.com) that it might be a yeast infection... bla bla long story... so I told the vet, who seemed puzzled by my suggestion. I asked her for some pro-biotic, to see if it'll make a difference, nothing. Again we changed his food to Dermatosis. Wow... now his poo was normal, BUT he was still itching.... He lost so much hair, we thought it could be mites, but the skin bio ruled it out, however our vet suggested an oral treatment (because of the bath issue) used on sheep, but that made him through up.... we changed vets. Again, more cortisone, more anti biotics, but this time he gave us a red anti bac shampoo, which seemed to make a huge difference. Only problem is, He hates water, a bath is very traumatizing for him. We've taken out most of the plants in our garden... to rule that out. Only other thing it could be is either detergent? or he use to sleep in a pure cotton duvet as a pup, but we've bought polly cotton bed cloths for him since. Could he be allergic to Polyester? Our Bully is beautiful, she's healthy and her coat is so shiny, so looks great, but our Dane, the poor thing is in a bad state.

Please Please Help

Wilmare
South Africa

ANSWER: It seems as though you are doing everything right, I think that it may have something to do genetically within your dogs pedigree.

I would do some further research into the pedigree to see if any other dogs in the litter or any other dogs within the pedigree may have suffered from any type of skin condition.

Has your vet taken and skin scrapings and tested them for mange? He may also have some kind of skin cancer which is not treatable and a dog will suffer for their entire life because there is no cure for it.

What you could also try is asking your veterinarian if he could try steroids and see if that helps the itching go down.

Let me know if that helps.

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

QUESTION: The skin scrapings tested negative for Mange, so did the lab results of the skin biopsy. He's been on steroids for more than a year now (we call it "Cortisone" in South Africa)it helps with the itch, but the moment we take him off it, it's same 'ol, same 'ol. Unfortunately we've lost all contact with the breeder in Johannesburg (We live in Cape Town) it's a long story, but we think that something might have happened to her and her family. She use to be in contact with us all the time, she was amazing and took great time & interest in our pup, she loved giving advice... We've tried our best to get hold of her and her husband, but their land line & mobile phones don't exist anymore and no one replies to our e-mails. It's the strangest thing.... twilight zone stuff.

Well... Thank you anyway.

Answer
It seems to me that you have done just about everything that you can do. So my biggest concern like I said before is that it may be something that was passed down genetically.

Have you tried to put your Dane on a RAW diet food instead of a dog kibble? Sometimes this has a great effect on their skin and some dogs do really well on it rather then on a dog kibble. If you need more information on the RAW diet let me know and I can get you started.