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Hi guys,
I hope you can help me. Angus and Simon are having a problem, and I really need some advice. Surely (hopefully) this has happened to someone here before:
OK. Last weekend I noticed that Angus was licking his feet a lot, and had started to leave little bald patches. All four feet. We took him to the vet on Monday, he did a scraping and it came back positive for yeast. He put him on an antifungal medication and Maleseb, an antifungal spray. So far I can't tell that it's helping, really. We also put Angus on Benadryl. Simon was already on it.
I asked the vet if it was contagious and he assured me it was not.
Then yesterday, I noticed Simon has a little bald patch going on one of his front feet.
Simon has always been the one with allergy issues - ears, anal glands, itchy skin, runny nose, etc. Angus has shown no other signs of anything except for the feet in the last week.
I talked to my dog food lady, and she said her thinking is that it has to be a contact allergy if he has no other allergy symptoms. Vet said that it was probably initially an allergy, which he then licked and kept moist, creating a perfect environment for fungus.
Here are some things that are rolling around in my head:
1) I haven't been doing flea meds on Angus this year - we've been using Neem Oil spray instead (which seems to have worked well so far). I was at first suspicious that maybe it was the lack of flea meds and some other insect besides fleas was getting his feet...but now that Simon has it too, and Simon HAS had flea meds, not so sure this could be it.
2) I have been gardening for 15 years, and I have never seen so much fungus in our mulch as this year. It's insane. Every day there is a new crop of mushrooms (which I quickly remove from the backyard). I've had dog vomit fungus and stinkhorn fungus. Fungus in mulch, fungus on feet?
3) Maybe Angus has suddenly developed an allergy to grass. This would totally suck.
I don't even know where to go with this.
4) With it being only the feet, doesn't it almost have to be a contact allergy?
5) I tried putting Gold Bond powder on Simon's foot last night, to see if that would help. It was worse (more hair gone) this morning. Then I read on the label of the GB, "If ingested contact Poison Control right away." ?!?! I put GB on a hot spot of Angus' years ago, and it cleared it right up. Please someone reassure me about this!
I am so torn up about this. Crash had terrible lick granulomas, from the time he was about this age until he passed away.
I was really hoping not to have these with the boys. And I would have thought after as much reading and research as I've done on general health in the past five years with them, I would feel more in control about something like this. But I still feel absolutely helpless to know what to do for them.
Any advice or thoughts or stories you could share would help me so much. I could really use your collective experience. I know it's not the end of the world, but the lick granulomas with Crash were always something that broke my heart and I didn't know what to do about them. I really want to be able to help the boys, if I can. For Crash, too. You know what I mean?
Thanks.
I hope you can help me. Angus and Simon are having a problem, and I really need some advice. Surely (hopefully) this has happened to someone here before:
OK. Last weekend I noticed that Angus was licking his feet a lot, and had started to leave little bald patches. All four feet. We took him to the vet on Monday, he did a scraping and it came back positive for yeast. He put him on an antifungal medication and Maleseb, an antifungal spray. So far I can't tell that it's helping, really. We also put Angus on Benadryl. Simon was already on it.
I asked the vet if it was contagious and he assured me it was not.
Then yesterday, I noticed Simon has a little bald patch going on one of his front feet.
Simon has always been the one with allergy issues - ears, anal glands, itchy skin, runny nose, etc. Angus has shown no other signs of anything except for the feet in the last week.
I talked to my dog food lady, and she said her thinking is that it has to be a contact allergy if he has no other allergy symptoms. Vet said that it was probably initially an allergy, which he then licked and kept moist, creating a perfect environment for fungus.
Here are some things that are rolling around in my head:
1) I haven't been doing flea meds on Angus this year - we've been using Neem Oil spray instead (which seems to have worked well so far). I was at first suspicious that maybe it was the lack of flea meds and some other insect besides fleas was getting his feet...but now that Simon has it too, and Simon HAS had flea meds, not so sure this could be it.
2) I have been gardening for 15 years, and I have never seen so much fungus in our mulch as this year. It's insane. Every day there is a new crop of mushrooms (which I quickly remove from the backyard). I've had dog vomit fungus and stinkhorn fungus. Fungus in mulch, fungus on feet?
3) Maybe Angus has suddenly developed an allergy to grass. This would totally suck.
4) With it being only the feet, doesn't it almost have to be a contact allergy?
5) I tried putting Gold Bond powder on Simon's foot last night, to see if that would help. It was worse (more hair gone) this morning. Then I read on the label of the GB, "If ingested contact Poison Control right away." ?!?! I put GB on a hot spot of Angus' years ago, and it cleared it right up. Please someone reassure me about this!
I am so torn up about this. Crash had terrible lick granulomas, from the time he was about this age until he passed away.
Any advice or thoughts or stories you could share would help me so much. I could really use your collective experience. I know it's not the end of the world, but the lick granulomas with Crash were always something that broke my heart and I didn't know what to do about them. I really want to be able to help the boys, if I can. For Crash, too. You know what I mean?
Thanks.