airedale terrrier

Question
QUESTION: My Airedale terrier, Omar, has a skin infection that my vet is treating with cyclosporine, when he is off the med, he gets irritated under one of his rear legs, like his arm pit area. But when I put him back on the meds, he clears up in one day, but gets off the meds and its back in one day. The vet wants to keep him on the med for life, but it is 189.00 for a one month supply. I love my dog so much and one do anything, but I cant afford the meds, any advice?

Omar is 2.5 years old

Male



Thanks,

Doug


ANSWER: Doug-

It is very typical of a vet to want to treat the symptoms, and not the underlying problem. Something is out there causing this skin infection that won't go away, and my guess is allergies, as the place you mentioned is a very common spot for yeast infections to crop up for either contact dermitis or food allergies.

If you are willing to do an exclusionary diet and patiently rule out one thing by one, then you can probably determine the best course of removing the actualy irritant.

What type of food is he eating? (Brand, type) How often? Is he indoor or outdoor? Is he on hard wood or carpet? Where does he like to sleep the most? Does he get rawhides/chew toys daily? Is he on flea control?

Any information would be very helpful. I hope I can assist!

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

QUESTION: The vet gave him antibiotics, not sure what, with the cyclosporin the first time, but not the second time.  He was on the cyclosporin for 30 days, and was off for about three days and the infection(I dont know if this is the correct term for what he has) came back.  the spot is under one of his rear legs, like his leg pit, if you will.  He licks and licks and licks, doesnt bite or scratch. the area is always moist and warm, the skin is never broken, but very irritated, red, and bald, almost turning black the more he goes at it. Last night the vet gave us another month of cyclosporin, and after researching all day on the computer, we are changing his diet.  I read on some airedale owners group forums what sounded like the same thing, and they changed the diet to lamb and rice and it worked. The vet said to do that, and also get him some fish oil supplements and no treats or anything until we see if that works.  We were feeding him fairly cheap store brand dog food, corn and beef.  The vet said many dogs were allergic to corn and beef.  Last night we got him IMAS lamb and rice. I really appreciate the advice and responce to my question. He does get raw hides once a week on average, but plays with balls and chew toys every day, alot, he lives indoors on hardwood floors, he eats twice a day, about 7 am and about 6 pm. there is a couch in the study that he sleeps on the most. And he has not had flea treatment in about three months.
As of now I have decided if the change in diet dont work I will go for the allergy test.
Please let me know what you think?  We live in East Tennessee.
Thanks, Doug

Answer
Doug-

We call that "swamp skin". Its very yeasty and almost akin to diaper rash when he keeps licking at it.

Corn, wheat, soy, byproducts, sugar, barley, yeast, rice in large amounts, and other inferior ingredients are downright dangerous to dogs and are probably the entire root of your problem. He is displaying extremly common side effects for corn or wheat allergies, which is the most common pet allergy. Beef is actually not that common, it's just the difference between human grade beef, and the horrible by products that can't even be called meat that go into cheap food. I can NOT stress enough how bad cheap storebrand food is for a dogs health, in fact I think it is slowly killing americas pets. Commercial food is responsible for more pet deaths then anything else.

Now that I am done ranting ( ;)  ) let me give you a couple of viable options.

First, I wouldn't put him on Iams lamb and rice (sorry!) Iams is a little better then store brand etc, but its not good enough. Its just not a good food. Its still byproducts, waste, floor sweepings, and unnamed meat sources. Its not enough protein, and contains way too many fillers and preservatives. If you want to stop paying the $180 a month on the medicine, Iams is not going to cut it.

If you prefer to purchase a commercial food, I would only look at grain free all organic foods. Some good brands to consider are:

Blue Buffalo Wilderness (This is readily available at petsmart)
Wellness CORE
Innova EVO
Taste of The Wild Praire edition (I dont like the streams one)
and similar.

Visit http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/ for more information on good quality dry food. Click on reviews, then click on six star foods. Don't feed anything lower then 6 stars!

However.... If you want to save money, feed your dog the absolute best food, keep him away from allergens, know exactly what he is eating, stop brushing your dogs teeth and feeding him preservatives and other problems, I would stay entirely away from commercial food and look into Raw feeding. Now, I know that sounds complicated, but I do it with 6 BIG dogs, and let me tell you it is VERY simple. It is much less time consuming, much less expensive, and very rewarding. My dogs are a thousand times healthier then they were on kibble, and I will NEVER allow one of my animals to eat commercial food again, now that I have seen the difference. One of my dogs could barely walk, even on high quality food, because of all of the problems in his food contributing to his weight, hips, skin, and heart. Now, he can run and jump like a puppy.

Raw feeding consists of feeding your dog large raw peices of meat and bone, usually just huge chunks of carcasses. For instance: whole raw chicken thighs and wings, turkey necks, pigs feet, rabbit quarters, venison chunks (if you are a hunter this is so easy for you to do as you just give the dog venison and bones from whatever you kill) beef bones, etc. Many dogs live their entire life on the raw diet only eating chicken quarters. That is the main part of my dogs diet- I buy the big 10 LBS bags of chicken quarters at walmart for $4.98. That's $.58 a pound, much cheaper then most organic food!! Then I suppliment with meat rabbits (usually purchased from farmers who raise them for meat), whole chickens, venison from hunters who want to get rid of their scraps, recreation bones like pigs feet and some organ meat like tripe, hearts and lungs. All in all I spend about 1/3 what I did feeding my dogs raw, healthy, natural food as I did when they were all on Wellness CORE.

If you are interested in feeding raw, visit www.rawmeatybones.com. There are two raw diets, one is called BARF and the other RMB. I recommend RMB as I do not agree with a lot of the veggie/ground meat requirements for BARF. I think RMB is more natural, and is the method I described above.

Also, just in case you were reading this and saying "I thought dogs couldn't have bones!!!" let me just ease your mind by saying DOGS SHOULD NEVER EVER BE GIVEN COOKED BONES...EVER!!! cooked bones splinter, they are hard and sharp and cause injury in so many ways by peircing intestines and getting stuck in throats. RAW bones are completely digestable, bendable, breakable and easy to eat for a dog- remember, thats what they were designed to eat! Think of it this way- a wolf regualarly catches and eats his own meat bones and all, but have you ever seen him light a fire and cook it first?

I hope this helps a little bit! Give him three months off of the commercial food, and I bet you can say goodbye to those allergy meds forever :)