What kinds of allergies do dogs suffer from?
The most common type is what we call environmental allergies, which are usually related to pollens or something in the environment that triggers an allergy. We can also have issues with food allergies, where dogs might be sensitive to a protein like chicken or perhaps a grain like soybean. There's what we call contact allergy, where dogs might lay on something irritating like a burlap bag or a wool blanket, and that can happen to you or I. Then, of course, we have flea and tick-related allergies, because when fleas bite to get their blood meal, they inject a protein that the dog can become sensitive to, causing them to itch.
What aspects of my dog's health can be affected by allergies?
The primary way that dogs express their allergies, and cats too, will primarily show up in the skin. Usually, we'll see irritated, inflamed ears, sometimes with a secondary infection. Sometimes they'll be licking and grooming or denuding the hair on their paws and in their groin. When things really get going, dogs will sometimes chew on their thighs or on their front legs, and you'll see this little moth-eaten hair loss. We tend to see that primarily in the spring and the fall with the onset of different types of pollens.
Can allergies in dogs cause behavioral changes?
Absolutely. Just think if you ran through a patch of poison ivy, how uncomfortable you would be. Sometimes when this happens in dogs, their skin literally feels like it's on fire. If your skin feels like it's on fire, are you going to be in a good mood? No, you're not. You're going to be like, "Gosh, let's stop this. I just want to be left alone. My skin's burning, it's itching. I'm going to roll, I'm going to chew, I'm going to scratch, I'm going to do what I can to get relief," and so they might be a bit grumpy.
What are some common dog allergy triggers?
Like I say, in the spring and the fall, it's primarily pollen. In Nebraska and our part of the woods, in the spring it's primarily trees and grasses, while in the fall it's grasses and weeds. We also have the harvest, which stirs up a lot of chaff that can blow in from multiple directions with the wind. In the fall, we can also have what we call flea allergy dermatitis because fleas are more prominent in the fall; they can be year-round, but that can be an issue. Sometimes dogs can have issues with their eyes as well, though that's not as common. The feet and the ears are usually the primary trigger points. As far as food allergies go, if dogs have that issue, they're going to show some gastrointestinal distress like vomiting or diarrhea. Sometimes it will show issues with irritated skin, especially the ears. We tend to look at that, especially during the winter months, if the pollens are quiet and the dog has a history of winter allergies. That's something where we would think about a food allergy trial to try to rule that out.
What treatment options are there for dog allergy relief?
There are different oral medications and there's also an injection. The older ones are corticosteroids like prednisone or dexamethasone. These have some side effects like causing your dog to drink more and urinate more. The advantage is that they're very inexpensive, but the drawbacks are increased urination, increased water intake, increased food intake, and panting. Then there are the newer drugs like Apoquel, which most people have probably seen on TV with the talking pug. It targets a specific chemical that triggers allergies in dogs. There's a cousin to Apoquel, which is an injection called Cytopoint, and that also targets that specific chemical. There's a new one out from Zoetis called Zeniquin that we may end up using. Right now, we're kind of sitting back and seeing how it plays out, but it's supposed to be more potent than Apoquel, so that may be a player down the road. Antihistamines in dogs are for very, very mild allergies. Antihistamines, as a rule, are generally not very effective because histamine is not a big player in terms of allergies in dogs, so for most dogs, those are not effective.
What is immunotherapy and can it help my dog's allergies?
Immunotherapy involves an injection of what your dog is allergic to. The dog would need to be tested, and we would refer to a board-certified allergist for that. They're going to do the skin test, and there's an art to that, which is why we don't do it. There are tests where you can sample the saliva or the blood, but we have found those are not as accurate. Let's say your dog on that skin test has an allergy to soybean. What they're going to do is take a soy extract, put it in an injection, and then inject that into the dog with gradually increasing amounts of soy. The idea is that your dog gets used to it so that his immune system does not overreact. That's what an allergy is—it's an overreaction of the immune system to an innocuous substance like a pollen.
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