We have a bullmastiff dog who is now 2 years old. Last year he started to scratch quite a lot, even taking a patch out of his coat. This eased up over the winter. However, it has become much worse. His coat is thin, he is constantly scratching, his eyes get build up of matter and his under belly is inflamed. We have visited the vets on numerous occasions. They have advised us to give him anti histamin tablets but this does not ease the problem much.

The only sollution the vets seem to offer would be steroids but we are concerned about the side effects.

Is anyone familiar with such problems? We need to find some way of easing things as we have a very unhappy dog.

ask your vet to have him allergy tested.  Vet takes blood sample, sends off to Yorktest who will return it with results; if it is a food problem, you can just eliminate it from the diet; if it is an environmental problem eg pollen, dust mites, this is less easy to resolve but there are other courses of action you can take which may remove or at least minimise the need for steroids.

One possibility is to try different antihistamines until you find the one that works. Have heard good results with Atarax and Tavegil.

Bathing with Malaseb shampoo (from vets) can also help.

Ailsa

hi,
I have Bullmastiffs and had the same problems with one of my boys a few years ago (sadly he is no longer with us).
After various treatments from the vets, we found that changing his food to a low protien one worked for him.
Go back to the vets and ask for more test to be done, as Thome has said.
Good luck.
Karen