Hi,
I am wondering if anyone can help, I have a 15 year old mongrel who began pulling out his fur and chewing his skin 3 months ago. The vet prescribed steriods and antibiotics, the condition was healing but we had to stop the steriods as blood tests showed liver damage. he has since taken a two week course of antibiotics with cream and a special shampoo. However the problem has not cleared up. I have taken him to another vet for a second opinion which resulted in more cream and another two weeks of antibiotics he is still red and sore and constantly chewing the area. He is on a vetinary prescibed hepatic diet and has been checked for fleas. I am at a loss as to what I can do now to make him comfortable,it is awful to see him distressed. Other than this he is eating well and enjoys short walks. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

How sad, poor thing.  Just a thought have you changed your washing powder that you wash his bedding in?  Biological powder can cause skin problems, probably best to change to non bio just in case.

I assume the hepatic diet he is on didn't coincide with the onset of this, skin problems are often caused by diet.  If he need to be on this then my suggestion on trying a bland human quality diet of mince, chicken, rice or pasta wouldn't be much help.

Hope you find something to help, it must be very distressing to see an elderly dog like this
Sandra

Thanks, but i have already changed to non bio and the skin problem started before the diet changed, Ihave tried everything I can think off plus a couple of huge vet bills to no avail
Jacs

Sorry if you already thought of this...Could it be a flea allergy? we had a dog with this and he pulled his hair out too. I would make sure he is up to date on worming and deflea ing. The vet shoud take skin scrapings. Also some liver and kidney conditions cause Pruritis, which is basically itching which is incessant.

Have not had skin scrapings done so I will go back to the vet and ask for this. I did not know about liver conditions causing itching, so thank you for the reply.

i thought skin scraping would be one of the first things a vet would do.cant treat untill you find out the cause of the problem.