Hello Everyone,
               I use Frontline for flea control for my 3 mth old Shih Tzu.The first month month I put it on,he did great.No scratching at all.A week before it time to put it on again,he started scratching.After a couple of days he was doing it more often.Yesterday I put on his second dose.He is still scratching.I don't find any fleas.He gets a bath once a week without fail.Does anybody have any ideas of what could be wrong?Any advice is greatly appreciated.
                                                                        Zoey

It may be something other than insect bite, could even be the weekly baths, best take to the vet.

Hi Jackie,Thanks for your reply.Do you think maybe he's getting too many baths?

it may sound daft, but have you wormed her recently? I had a puppy who drove me crazy scratching at that age (she'd missed a worming dose because of her inoculations). Once I wormed her, she stopped scratching.

Yes,he was wormed 2 weeks ago and 2 weeks before that.

Zoe, it is a well known fact that an itch skin can be almost anything, it could be the shampoo, his food, his bed, your talc, the carpet. Anything. Have it checked out by a vet who may not be able to say why but should be able to help. Once had a dog allergic to Daffodils.

Hi Zoey,
I have 2 tzu's and 1 of them has atopic dermatitis,she is allergic to grass :( supplementing with omega 3's helps a great deal,both my girls get vit.E,evening primrose oil,salmon oil and alfalfa,they also get weekly baths,one has no choice with long haired dogs we walk by the river everyday,each time they go swimming and then roll in the mud,they get really icky,i really should be bathing them everyday but i doubt that would be very good for their skin.
A friend of mine had a gsd who was constantly itching,so he had all the allergy tests done,cost him hundreds of dollars and it ended up that his dog was also allergic to grass,it helped him identify the allergy but there wasnt much he could do about it as everywhere we go has grass including his backyard.One other thing that has practically eliminated my girls itching are antihistamines,i use a brand named "polaramine" i'm in Australia so you may not have the exact same brands as us,my vet said that any anthis. starting with the letter P is safe to give dogs.

good luck
let us know how you get on.

Edited to say: One book that has helped me immensly is "the natural health bible for dogs and cats" by Shawn Messioner,i would reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in natural healing,it includes a list of over 200 herbs,their uses and the doses to give,it also has just about every disease your pet can get and the therapies to help,absolutely brill.  it is available through Amazon.

christine :)

Hi Christine,
        Thanks for your reply.I think you may be right about the grass.He's just now not starting to get really bad in the past month.It has also started warming up here so he likes to stay outside a pretty good bit.Before it was pretty cold outside.As soon as it started to warm up outside it seems like it got worse.When it was cold out,he would do his business and come right back in.I've heard of people giving their dog Benedryl.I wasn't sure about doing that,because he only weighs 6 lbs.
                      Thanx Zoey

I know several dogs that have a housemite allergy, this has been alleviated by spraying the whole house with Indorex.

HTH

As someone else said, itchy skin can be caused by many things. Have read that a diet too high in protein can cause this too, so worth checking her food.

More likely to be an allergy to a specific protein rather than the protein level per se!  If you are allergic to a substance you will be allergic to it whatever the quantity; as opposed to intolerance which can increase with rising levels of the offending product.

Without actual allergy testing it will be trial and error; whereas a simple blood test can reveal the allergens which can then, if diet related, be removed from the intake.

Well Harriet,You may have just figured this out.My dog has being eating the cats food.The vet said that it would probably be ok as long as he's a pup,but when he gets older,he shouldn't eat it anymore because it was so high in protein.i'm not gonna give him anymore cat food and see if it stops.I dont feed him cat food all the time.He eats Science Diet puppy food,he just gets into the cat food sometimes.The vet said it wouldn't hurt anything so I didn't worry about putting it out of his reach.Thanks,Zoey