I get dogs with various skin issues all the time and one of the first things I figured out is conventional vet care rarely ever works for the more complicated cases. I have developed this protocol over time and with a huge degree of success and then came Toby. Toby was the worst case of chronic skin infection I have ever seen. To refresh everyone, Toby was a 9 year old Shih Tzu who's owner dropped him off at a local shelter as I was standing there choosing other dogs to rescue. They had gotten Toby as a pup and his skin issue began almost immediately. By the time I saw him, he had 9 years of special kibbles, prednisone, antibiotics, special shampoos etc, etc etc. He stunk to high heaven. You could smell this guy coming in the door. His skin was fire red, sticky, weepy, oily, greasy. The tissue in his ears was reddened and somewhat inflamed making his ear canals appear smaller than normal and the inside of his ears were also stinky and oozy. I decided to fire all of my guns at once and used every thing I could think of to combat this lifelong problem and prayed something in the mix would work. The treatment would be time consuming, must be consistent and most of all had to be something others could follow if he stood a chance for adoption. Otherwise, we were looking at a dead dog. His lifelong family had already given up on this stinkpot with the coat too sticky and greasy to pet. And honestly, if Toby hadn't of been such an outgoing happy dog, I wouldn't have bothered either.
Now it happens we have Benard and Carol on the list today and their problem seems very similar to Toby's so I hope some of this may help.
I approach skin disorders as an inside out thing. This is not something than can be treated from the inside alone nor will treating just the outside net results either. To clear up skin disorders you have to treat the dog, inside AND out.
Toby had been on every special diet the vet could think of and was currently on Eukanuba fish and potato. It obviously didn't help because if improvement was being made, his owners wouldn't have dumped him.
Toby's inside treatment:
I can't help anyone to choose a commercial kibble diet when it comes to skin issues. There just isn't a kibble that will help and most will keep the problem going. I strongly urge anyone facing a chronic skin disorder to get Kymythy Schultz book, learn about basic natural diet and get started. Skin issues are almost always either yeast related, staph related or both. Commercial kibbles are grain laden and contains far too many sugars, yeasts and sugar or yeast producing elements, regardless of what the label says. I simply can't tell you strongly enough that kibble diets are the reason the problem never clears up. In order to clear up a problem like Toby (and it sounds like Benard) has, a wholesome, natural diet made of fresh quality human grade foods is mandatory and to do less is wasting your time and efforts.
Toby's Diet:
Ground chicken with the bones ground into the meat, ground veggies (no more than 3–5 kinds of veggies in any mix, completely avoiding the starchy veggies. The mix was 75% meat and 25% veggies. Toby got no treats other than bits of 100% pure chicken breast, dried like jerky or fresh whole raw veggies.
Toby's Medications:
Red or pink itchy skin that stinks and oozes or sweats and feels greasy is a sure sign of yeast overgrowth and staph in combination. Yeast comes from the body's inability to process grains and sugars and grows profusely and staph grows in the microscopic tears in the skin that come from constant scratching. Interestingly yeast and staph often will not show up in a skin scraping at the vet. Yeast is a fungus and staph a bacteria so usually what works for one will increase the other! That is why nothing seems to work.
......contiunes......
Now it happens we have Benard and Carol on the list today and their problem seems very similar to Toby's so I hope some of this may help.
I approach skin disorders as an inside out thing. This is not something than can be treated from the inside alone nor will treating just the outside net results either. To clear up skin disorders you have to treat the dog, inside AND out.
Toby had been on every special diet the vet could think of and was currently on Eukanuba fish and potato. It obviously didn't help because if improvement was being made, his owners wouldn't have dumped him.
Toby's inside treatment:
I can't help anyone to choose a commercial kibble diet when it comes to skin issues. There just isn't a kibble that will help and most will keep the problem going. I strongly urge anyone facing a chronic skin disorder to get Kymythy Schultz book, learn about basic natural diet and get started. Skin issues are almost always either yeast related, staph related or both. Commercial kibbles are grain laden and contains far too many sugars, yeasts and sugar or yeast producing elements, regardless of what the label says. I simply can't tell you strongly enough that kibble diets are the reason the problem never clears up. In order to clear up a problem like Toby (and it sounds like Benard) has, a wholesome, natural diet made of fresh quality human grade foods is mandatory and to do less is wasting your time and efforts.
Toby's Diet:
Ground chicken with the bones ground into the meat, ground veggies (no more than 3–5 kinds of veggies in any mix, completely avoiding the starchy veggies. The mix was 75% meat and 25% veggies. Toby got no treats other than bits of 100% pure chicken breast, dried like jerky or fresh whole raw veggies.
Toby's Medications:
Red or pink itchy skin that stinks and oozes or sweats and feels greasy is a sure sign of yeast overgrowth and staph in combination. Yeast comes from the body's inability to process grains and sugars and grows profusely and staph grows in the microscopic tears in the skin that come from constant scratching. Interestingly yeast and staph often will not show up in a skin scraping at the vet. Yeast is a fungus and staph a bacteria so usually what works for one will increase the other! That is why nothing seems to work.
......contiunes......