My dog is special.

[boxofdelights]

My dog Kitsu, she worries a lot. She's a nervous little dog in a big-dog body. One way she copes with her worries is by overgrooming. She has had at least one lickspot in all the years I've known her, usually on her feet. We've gotten through two sets of paw protectors. We also use the Cone of Shame.

This summer her lickspots have been more varied and more persistent. Still usually on her legs and feet, but the most recent two are on the underside of her fluffy tail and at the top of her fluffy left hipbone. I worry that this is the only visible sign of a painful underlying disease. I worry that it's a side-effect of my not grooming her enough: it began in the spring shed, which always makes her miserable, since her undercoat is dense, fine, and curly, and mats easily.

This morning she woke Hugh up by vomiting. Yellow froth, three times. This evening I saw her gagging and got her outside, where she choked up a hairball. Hair sausage, really, but: my dog has hairballs.

I think I must ask the vet for doggy Valium.

Comments

[twistedchick]

How much grease is in her diet to help her pass those furballs through her? And is it possible that she has an allergy to something that's showing up through itchy skin? That can happen in cats, depending on food sometimes.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Seconded--hot spots are often a sign of the wrong food being given. Try her on a lean ground meat and rice diet for a few days and see what happens.

[boxofdelights]

Handling raw meat in this kitchen would be difficult: 3/4 of my family are vegetarian, and the only meat I eat is fish. I might try it in *my* kitchen, in *my* house.

[boxofdelights]

We feed a packaged food, but it's a vet-recommended, high-quality, low-allergenic packaged food. Lamb, rice, avocadoes. She could be allergic as well as anxious, but the increased licking could be explained by increased anxiety caused by my preparing to move out. But I don't want to assume a new problem is really just the old problem.

Wish they could talk.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I know you don't need more worries but my childhood dog licked herself constantly, to near-hairball levels, and our vet (who was also our former US Senator) said, after doing some tests, that she was having serious skin allergy problems, to what we never figured out, and she itched all over. We started giving her some low-level antihistamines and it helped her licking a lot.

[boxofdelights]

Huh. I'll ask the vet about trying that.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

You've probably already thought of this, but: Sometimes when a dog has a skin infection, the owner washes the dog but doesn't think to wash/change the dog's bedding, which means the dog gets reinfected with Itch as soon as it lies down. It helps to cover the dog's resting places with sheets or pillowcases, and then treat dog-washing as a multi-step process:

1) Run bath for dog.
2) Collect all covers from dog's resting places. Apply clean ones.
3) IMMEDIATELY, before the dog can lie down anywhere, take dog to bathroom and wash dog. Wash the collar too.

[boxofdelights]

Thank you. I'll ask the vet about skin infection as well as allergy and anxiety.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

And you've considered bitter lime, right? Natural, non-poisonous, very very bitter stuff to spray on the spots where they chew. I think it stings initially, but then you see them move to chew and move the mouth away again because it tastes too bad. Can give the sore spots a chance to heal.

Of course, that won't help the anxiety. I heard (from a vet) that Valium does work on dogs, so talking to your vet about that would probably be a more comprehensive solution.

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

About 17 years ago I knew someone who had a Dalmatian. It licked its legs like that ~constantly due to a wheat allergy.

[saluqi.livejournal.com]

GAS alert!

Yellow froth often just means the stomach is completely empty. Do you feed once or twice a day? Have you tried a low-allergenic food?

Before trying doggie valium try a small amount of lavender on bedding. I know it sounds insanely hippy, but many people have had success with it. Also, there are doggie CDs for anxious dogs, but Mozart at a calming volume works well too.

Valium, cones and other methods don't deal with the underlying problem so can make life even more stressful for the dog. The most common anti-anxiety pet med - Clomicalm - has been associated with birth defects in dogs.

The Furminator is good for getting rid of excess coat.

The best resource for dogs like these is a journal called "The Whole Dog Journal": www.whole-dog-journal.com/ It is a truly awesome resource.

[boxofdelights]

We feed a packaged food, but it's a vet-recommended, high-quality, low-allergenic packaged food. Lamb, rice, avocadoes. Twice a day. We're giving her a little more in the mornings since you suggested she might be hungry.

Thanks for the advice. It is welcome.

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

My girl used to get hairballs from grooming the cats, and the vet suggested we treat her with doggy laxatives so that the hair would go through her smoothly instead of getting vomited up. It worked!

[boxofdelights]

I'd never heard of a dog with hairballs! I thought cats got them because of the spines on their tongues. I'll gladly give her that beef-flavored Vaseline they give cats.