Help Needed !!!

[Jools]

Hi all,
Was wondering if anyone can help or if they have experienced any similar problems. My wonderful, wonderful boy Taylor is having terrible trouble with his feet, underneath his pads between his toes in the fleshy bits. It's as if they are continually raw, as if a human had skinned they're knee. I thought it may be his weight - although he's a very lean 36kg dog. I thought his toes were rubbing all the time but they're not. The vet suggests it may be an allergy thing, am washing his feet with tee tree oil and keeping him off the beach so as it doesn't aggrevate it. Another vet suggests a different food. Am totally stumped?????? :-((( I feel sorry for him, it doesn't really annoy him, but he also adores the beach, digging and carrying on. The muppet still can't swim!!

Another thing he has got a couple of small - almost like blood blisters(small pea size) which have materialised out of nowhere. Two on the top of his paws and one on his elbow. One burst the other day and it has taken almost two days for it to have congeel and form a scab !!!

Could it be some sort of blood disorder. He's approaching 5 years old, is a house dog, almost fully human and good pedigree blood lines.

Hope you guys have some experience or thoughts???

Jools

 

[gmacleod]

I'd concur with your vet that it sounds VERY much like allergies. The question though, is to what?

Allergies can be environmental, of course, or they can be food-related. Because of the location of his itchies (feet) and the fact that you're in this particular part of the world (where we have little in the way of quality dog food) - I'd go out on a limb and say that food allergies are the most likely. They're certainly the easiest to diagnose and solve so worth looking into.

A dog, of course, can be allergic to pretty much anything at all (as can people). But there are a few things that are very common culprits and also common in some dog foods. The most common of those are wheat, soy, corn (maize), beet pulp, and molasses. If you're feeding anything that has "cereals" or "cereal derivatives" in it, chances are that includes corn and wheat. Other things to avoid are meat by-products ("derivatives") and carcinogenic chemical preservatives like BHA, BHT and Ethoxyquin.

Btw: Per the site rules, you need to introduce yourself to the community before participating to the rest of the forums. I am approving this post, but you'll need to introduce yourself before further posts are approved.

 

[rupertpeeter]

Hi,
I was about to post the story in barf forum in autumn but now it's gonna be here. I fought with the same paw problem from last autumn till spring. It was a daily (or ten times a day) fight: salt baths, green tea and aspirin baths, ACV, shampoos (nizoral, hexocil, etc.), changing foods, elimination diets, ointments, creams and million other things. I was walking around like a tortured professor inventing solution, I searched the internet high and low. It was painful for him to walk, so I started buying and ordering boots - he went through 4 pairs during that time, but ast least he could walk without pain and the time outside was fun again for him. One thing I was really afraid of was the threat of putting him on steroids, and I wasn't too keen on antibiotics either, since I'd found stories on the net that it doesn't really help and it would often be back right after the antibiotic course. 4-5 months into it I swiched to raw (and the wonderful people here helped me through the beginning). I did it at first the Billinghurst way, with 10-15% vegetables. It did get better after the switch. He started having abcesses right after the switch, and it seemed like it was getting worse, but it was only a healing process. But they didn't get good enough to walk without boots. So three months after the switch I decided to drop the veggies for a week to see if it makes any difference. And guess what? The paws started to get better and better, two weeks after that he was walking without boots and has been ever since!

I really hope it's not just a summer and frequent swimming in the sea thing. And I really wanted to wait til autumn (to be sure) and then discuss it on the barf forum.

My suggestions would be:

Dry those paws after every walk and after every bath very carefully. Be religious about it, it's really important. If they are damp, the infection spreads.

Do everything you can to prevent spreading of the infection and don't stop seeking solution.

If it's painful to walk or if it makes the paws worse, buy boots. They don't like them in the beginning (and they're sooo funny) but they get used to them quickly.

In this part of the world it's called furunculosis and it's deemed incurable (but vets never recommend raw feeding so it's no surprise).

I still don't know what really caused it. If it's allergy, then he became allergic to all grains and everything plant based overnight. I suspect it's a little more complicated than that but I'm just so grateful he's ok now (and loving the food of course).

Oh, by the way I've read a couple of stories where people have moved to the beach with their dog and the problem goes away by itself. So I don't believe you have to avoid the beach. It's salty there and salt is good.

I really hope you find a solution. Keep us posted and don't give up hope.