She's so ITCHY!

Cynder is my boyfriend's little 30 pound Spaniel/Lab mutt dog. She's around five years old or so and has been spayed. She's always had a problem with seasonal allergies, but she is BAD right now. She started having problems towards the end of summer and it has not improved at all. I'm tight on cash right now, but it is getting to the point that I'm about ready to take her into the vet and see if they can give her any kind of medication or something. But, since I'm tight on cash, I thought I'd ask here first to see if anyone had any suggestions we could try to see if it will help her out.

She's currently eating Pedigree (the skin and coat version, or something...no corn, but wheat). He was feeding her a mix of that and TOTW Wetlands (which I bought for her) and I think while he was feeding the mix she improved a bit, because now that he's gone back to just straight Pedigree (the TOTW ran out) he said she's been digging more. So I'm going to pick her up a bag of TOTW tomorrow and get her started back on that.

Her coat is actually in great shape. He had shaved her down mid summer (she has a coat like a really thick Lab, I guess) to help keep her cool and it has grown back just fine. She doesn't have a dandruff problem and she's not massively shedding. Her skin looks healthy (besides where she's irritated it digging at it).

I'm pretty sure she doesn't have fleas. I haven't seen any and neither has he and she's on a preventive.

She digs really bad at her shoulders, her lower belly (on the sides, right by the tuck up area), and the base of her tail/thighs. She scratches, she chews, she licks, she chomps...she sounds horrible. She dug at her shoulder so bad last night she actually broke skin and caused a scab to form.

He has her on a fish oil supplement (200mg once or twice a day, I think) and I gave Chloe's old antihistamine pills to give her for when she really gets itching bad to see if it would help, but I don't think they really have any affect. He'll cram a benadryll down her throat if she's having a horrible time of it, but it only helps a bit. He also bathes her with an oatmeal shampoo every two weeks or so to try to keep her irritation down. I've given her a bath in Cortisoothe before at work, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Any ideas? Short of giving her some kind of steroid shot, I'm at a loss.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why she'd still be reacting to an environmental allergy since we now have snow on the ground and I highly doubt there is any kind of pollen left in the air. He did move in to a new place at the beginning of August, so is it possible she is having some kind of an allergic reaction to something in his apartment? But, she also still itches and digs when not at his apartment, so...

And, just because they were really cute...two pictures of her and Chloe sleeping on my bed one afternoon:

Wheat allergy? Or something else in the food? Probably not what your boyfriend wants to hear, lol.

I'm guessing it's the Pedigree. There's enough wheat chaff, soy and just over all sh*t in there to irritate anybody. Especially since you say she was better when there was some TOTW mixed in.

I would have him get her off the Pedigree. That food is full of fillers and wheat can be causing her to have an allergic reaction or something else in the food.

She's either been on Pedigree or Beneful her entire life and hasn't really had any bad reactions to it so far. But, I do think a food change will help, which is why I pushed the TOTW in the first place. (Anything to get her off the Pedigree, and I just about keeled over and died when he said, "Well, what about Beneful?" X_X) I personally didn't notice a huge difference when she was on it, but a.) he was mixing it and b.) I wasn't around her 24/7 like he was to really tell a big difference. So I'll take his word for it when he said it helped.

Definitely go back to TOTW. You saw results before so I would say the other food is the problem.

I agree about the food. Violet had/has what sounds like the same thing as Cynder. She chewed/licked/scratched her tummy 'til all the hair was gone and it was really red. She itched (but less drastically) the base of her tail, shoulders, etc, like you said about Cynder. We took her to the vet and she had to be on 3 different medecines. An antibiotic, prednisone, and something else. They said it was a yeast skin infection, and most likely caused by an allergy. She's improved a LOT but still itches some. We're going to take her to the groomer and wash her really good to get rid of any possible irritation that could be left on her skin, and we've switched her frood from TOTW with lamb to TOTW with fish. My vet said she's seen more and more lamb allergies lately. Once she's been on this forumula of TOTW for a while, and after she gets a good bath, I'm hoping she'll be better.

Good luck with Cynder! A side thought: Could her skin be irritated/dry from being bathed so often?

I am helping a neighbor dog that sounds very similar. Her problem was yeast, we changed the diet and are going through a series of baths and probiotic treatments to get rid of it. It has helped her a great deal and now her fur is coming back in. I hope you can find an easy answer. For this dog, wheat and corn were her culprits. I used peppermint shampoo, tea tree oil and vinegar a couple cups in her bath water soaks. They said she doesn't itch at all after her baths. We have been doing this every 3 days at first and now twice a week.

This link really helped me help her.
http://www.natural-dog-health-remedies.com/dog-candida-remedies.html

Thought I'd update:

She's been on TOTW Wetlands again for about a month or so now. Now instead of being dry and dandruffy, she's oily and dandruffy and still itching. I work in the grooming area of a vet clinic, so the best way for me to describe it is her coat condition has changed to the point I've stopped giving her bathes in oatmeal/conditioner and instead used the Keratolux shampoo on her this past bath. Did wonders for her coat, but she was still digging afterwards. Her skin still looks healthy (and she doesn't have that nasty dog-with-a-skin-condition odor), but she does have some scabs where she's been digging at herself so much.

I need to get my balance paid off in at work before I spend more on vet bills, but would having her looked at by a vet help at all? I don't know what more they'd tell me to do with her that I'm not already doing. Nothing seems to be helping and I'm pulling my hair out!

They'd likely give prednisone to help alleviate the itching, since you said benedryll doesn't help

Have you tried any other meds? I've given my Corgi Clairiten(sp?) before, vet said at his weight (36lbs approx) half of a tablet. They also said if that doesn't work I could try half a tab of Zyrtec. Right now he's back on Benedryl, it's the only thing that is keeping him from licking his feet and gagging after, but it makes his terribly grumpy, which is hard to believe with his regular attitude anyway.

Are you still giving the fish oil, even though you changed foods? You could also try (probably going to be a very unpopular opinion about to be written) putting one raw egg over her food a day. We usually end up with someone pecking or sticking a toe nail through one ever day here, so it just goes to the dogs.

Nothing other than Benedryl, but we've also used some antihistamine pills (can't remember the exact drug it was) and they didn't do anything. We could try something else, though.

I don't think he's been giving her the fish oil, no, but when he was it also didn't seem to help.