Why Is My Pet So Itchy?

If we just treated the symptoms, the itch, and we didn't treat the infection, we will never get things under control. So it's unfortunately a combination. We have to go after both of them, but we now have some great medications.

Hi, everybody. It's Dr. Michele Drake, and I'm here today to talk to you about something that's very concerning to a lot of dog and some cat owners is having an itchy pet at home. And Nicole is here to ask me some questions that a lot of you have concerning these issues.

Dr. Drake, why is my pet so itchy?

So we see a lot of itchy dogs and some itchy cats. So what we need to do is we need to get to the root of the cause and sometimes it's super obvious, and obviously the most common and obvious one would be fleas. If your dog or cat has fleas, it is going to make them itch. And so we need to get that taken care of first to determine, is there something else going on in addition? So some dogs have allergies, and then by the way, they got fleas, so we're going to want to get rid of the fleas first, see how they're doing, and then decide whether or not we need to do more care. So I would say the vast majority of dogs that have chronic itching or foot licking. I have two dogs that have allergies at home. They're both foot lickers. And we need to get to what are the secondary infections that they may have in addition to the allergies, but then also start working on the allergy issues too.

How can my vet determine why my pet is itchy?

Yeah. So obviously, we're going to rule out parasites, fleas and ticks first, and mites. There are certain mites that can cause a lot of itch. We've all heard of demadex or mange. Those things are super itchy also. So we're going to make sure those things are not part of. We're going to treat for those first. And then we're going to go on to looking at the length of the itching. So we're going to talk to you a lot. We're going to get information from you because your dog or cat is not going to really share much with us, but we want to know things about how often they are itching, when are they itching, and then... unfortunately, there's so much information that food allergy is such a big thing. If you go to a pet store, they're all going to tell you it's food, it's chicken, it's beef, it's whatever.

And really food can be a component of some of these allergies, but it's really a much smaller component than the things that they're exposed to in the environment. So when we test a dog and actually do allergy testing, we're testing for all 75 different things. So no one can look at your pet and be like, "Oh, that's what they're allergic to." So what we're going to do is we may or may not do the allergy testing. There's many things that we can do that we have such great medications now for itching and the secondary infections that they have. And what we're going to try to do is get the itch under control, get the infection under control, and then help you come up with some plans that you can do at home so that you can link the amount of time between you're going to need to come back in here or when your pet is suffering. So there's some great new drugs that we have available to us. One of my dogs is on an injectable once a month and another one is on a pill once a day. So in addition, topical bathing is so important. So there really is a fair amount that goes into it. We just need to calm down, take some time to figure out what's going on and make a good plan.

All right. That kind of goes into my next question. What kind of treatments or products are available to reduce my pet's itchiness?

Yeah, so again, we're going to always try to rule out parasites first, mites and fleas. And then after that, we're going to look secondary infections or even primary infections of yeast or bacteria as being causes. Those are both itchy. Yeast is specifically very itchy, but so is bacteria. So we may want to do some scrapings of the skin around the nails or the ears to determine what type of infection that we have because we're going to treat specifically to that. And then in addition, we're going to start treating for the itch, the symptoms that they have. If we just treated the symptoms, the itch, and we didn't treat the infection, we will never get things under control. So it's unfortunately a combination. We have to go after both of them, but we now have some great medications.

When I first started practicing a long time ago, we didn't have these, but we now have a pill that is graded just basically stops the itch response, and we also have an injectable, once a month medication injectable that's specifically for the immune modulating. So it's helping to stop the response that we have to things that we're allergic to. So these things are very safe when used carefully, and we're going to watch your dog and use the least amount we can always use, but seasonally, some dogs are really suffering and we don't want them suffering.

Last question, what kind of issues can arise if my pets itchiness is not promptly treated?

Well, first of all, I think an itchy pet is suffering. We can imagine our own selves. If we get itchy skin, for whatever reason, whether we get bites or hives, or we have skin allergies ourselves, that's really unpleasant. So I think we want to alleviate the suffering, but also if they really dig it themselves, they can create like much worse infections and hotspots, which are kind of awful too. So we want to stay on top of things, so they don't suffer. We get the infections under control and then you'll see less of us too, so we want to stay on top of things. So if you have any other questions about itchiness or allergies, we really enjoy spending a lot of time explaining things and working with you as a partner to make sure your dog and cat have the best care they need. Give us a call at the Drake Center.