Doberman

Question
Hi Karen,
I also am a volunteer on 'Experts'. I thought I would try and see if you have any ideas on our delema. I have a 8 year old Doberman who suddendly last summer started chewing and scratching his back to a point it was bleeding. It was in the areas he could reach, righ and left sides of the top rear back. I have had him to 2 Vets, scrapings were done, plugs have been taken and sent to a dermotology dept. No one can pin point this problem. We have him on special food and pred. twice a day. The food, after 12 weeks, made no difference. so now we have him just on the pred. This is what we intend to do from here on. Just the pred. as it is the only thing that seems to work. I realize we are 'masking' the issue. But the issue can't be found.
Thanks for any ideas,
Cheryl

Answer
This sounds exactly like something that went through a few of our dogs here this past winter. A skin scraping also found nothing.

Whatever it is/was, I feel that it was something contagious since I had it in multiple dogs almost simultaneously (but not all of them and it mostly did happen one after the other), and in all cases it tended to be around their tail/back/loin/upper thigh areas... all toward the rear of the dogs.

The vet felt that it was some sort of allergic reaction that they were all having simultaneously. Since nothing has changed here (before, then, or now) and it was in the dead of winter (in Minnesota), I feel that she is wrong about that. In fact, the ONLY thing "different" here that I can think of now is that we had our usual fall/winter mouse invasion, but I totally eliminated them within about a week or so as I have mouse-catching down to a fine science here now. The mice all looked very healthy (two parents and offspring, it appeared), and I found no evidence of fleas on them or any of the dogs.

What we did was to put Elizabethan collars on those dogs who were affected, and once the coats began to grow back in, the dogs seemed to be "cured", although one dog did begin to chew in a different area and had to be "coned" a second time.

Whatever this was, it seemed to be localized intense itching... the kind that would make a dog jump up and whip around and start chewing. Maybe it was something in the nerve-endings, but then why localized? Unfortunately, I really have no concrete answer for you or me either.

You don't say what color your Dobie is, but I do know that some, like the blues and fawns, are very prone to skin issues. If you haven't already, I would certainly have a thorough thyroid panel run on your guy. Maybe this site will give you some ideas: http://www.seattle-attorney.com/storm/sup.html

Things to think about:  Have you put any new carpeting in your home? They contain harmful chemicals. Also think about what chemicals you might be using to clean floors or carpeting in your house. Possibly he is allergic to the detergent you are using to wash your clothes and bedding. If it is an allergy, dogs can be allergic to absolutely anything; only something like 30% of allergies are food-related. Did he have any vaccinations last year? Those can trigger all sorts of issues in some of our dogs.

Good luck with this...