Tips For Treating Hot Spots On Dogs

Hot spots on dogs come on fast and quickly turn bad as infection takes hold. Hots spots on dogs are serious and are an acute form of intense itching that represent a major canine skin problem.

Your itchy dog will mutilate itself as the poor animal tries to relieve the maddening itch by scratching.

As the rubbing and itching and scratching continues, the skin is traumatised. Traumatised skin weeps serum as if you had skinned your elbow for example.

As the skin weeps, it sticks to the hair of the itchy dog. Hot spots in dogs develop under this wet matting of hair that forms a covering to the infection.

The wet matting of dog hair covers an infection that spreads like fire under the hair. Hot spots in dogs are extremely itchy and often acute in onset. The animal will rub and scratch itself until it is raw and bleeding.

It is important to take the heat out of the infection. This can be achieved by bathing. It is important to clean away the pus and muck that accumulates in the hair over the infection. Bathe this away with an antiseptic soap.

Once you have bathed the pus and muck away from the site using either an antiseptic shampoo or oatmeal shampoo, it is important to clip the hair away.

Clipping the hair away from the skin may be difficult. These skin infections are very inflamed and painful and may make cutting the hair away from the skin very difficult.

In an ideal world you would use clippers to shave the hair from the skin as closely as possible. If this is on the face of your dog, you may find this difficult due to the severe pain your pet may be experiencing.

If this isn't possible and your pet is suffering pain whilst trying to clip the hair from the skin, you may have to visit your vet where the animal can be sedated and treated.

If you succeed inclipping the hair away from the site of the infection, you will be amazed at the redness and swelling. It is also amazing to see just how much bigger the sore is after you have clipped the hair away.

The red weeping sore should be bathed to remove surface pus and debris. An ideal solution for bathing this weeping sore is a dilute solution of either betadine or chlohexidine. If using betadine, make the solution look like weak tea. You just really add only a few drops so that it is very diluted.

An antiseptic solution will help kill surface bacteria and clean the infection.

You have to stop your dog scratching to prevent this becoming rapidly worse. This can be difficult. You could cover your pets feet with bandages or socks to stop the nails from damaging the skin when the dog is scratching.

Treating hot spots on dogs is one thing. Preventing the intense itching and scratching that causes such terrible infection would be desirable.

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