ASK THE VET: Itchy pets need a diagnosis, not oil supplements
Itching dogs drive us crazy, thumpa-thumpa-thumping against the floor when digging at themselves next to the bed all night while we are trying to sleep. Cats with an itch tend to be more subtle, appearing with highly unfashionable bald patches on their bellies, or scabs in front of their ears — and we probably never saw them scratching or pulling at their hair at all.
Itchiness in pets usually doesn’t start off as something that seems significant enough to warrant immediate medical attention. Many owners assume that the problem is dry skin, especially when there is flaking and dandruff accompanying the itching. So they’ll go out and buy one of the many oil supplements available to pour on their pet’s food, or they’ll provide homemade oil supplementation in the form of vegetable oil or bacon grease. Bad idea.
While these home remedies can cause diarrhea, pancreatitis and obesity, they rarely have any effect on most itching problems, which are almost never caused by a dietary oil deficiency.
It turns out that there are about seven zillion different things that cause itchiness in our pets. Identifying the cause can be challenging, since similar symptoms can result from very different problems, and successful treatment usually needs to be directed at the specific cause.
Diagnosis is often a bit of a process, however. We will perform some diagnostics and try some treatments. If that doesn’t work, we try new diagnostics and new treatments, all in a logical progression. With some of the more exotic diseases, we might be able to diagnose the problem, but the lengths we have to go to can be extensive.
Fleas are not a problem in the Pikes Peak area, so one of the most common reasons for itching here is allergies. Dogs and cats that are itchy in a very seasonal pattern, say every May and August, but who seem fine other times of the year are often seasonal allergy sufferers. They tend to be reactive to the same sorts of things that cause hay fever in people, but our pets develop itchy skin instead of nasal congestion and watery eyes.
The other general category of allergies is food allergies. In cats there may be more gastrointestinal signs, like frequent vomiting, but in both dogs and cats, the primary sign is itchy skin. Because food allergies are a response to some ingredient to which the pet is exposed every day, the itchiness tends to be continual.
With food allergies, pet owners can take the main role in solving the problem by administering a diet trial. It w3orks by changing the pet’s food to something that shares no ingredients with the current food. Simply switching brands doesn’t work if both brands contain, say, corn, and it happens that the pet is reactive to corn. For eight weeks, the pet eats the new food and absolutely nothing else, so take away the rawhides, tuna snacks, and biscuits. If the itching is reduced, then we have a non-drug solution to the problem, and you can save money on over-the-counter oil treatments.
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Anne Pierce is a Colorado Springs veterinarian and co-owner of High Plains Veterinary Hospital, a Colorado Springs small-animal clinic. Reach her at petdocs@highplainsvet.com.
