hay fever

Poor Ben is a bit under the weather, he had a rash on his belly a few weeks ago which he got some pills for, but when that cleared up he started to get sore eyes, he has like a jelly like discharge from them and I need to clean them about 6 times a day. He's also sleeping more and has started losing weight even though he is still eating the same.
The vet has gave him more tablets and drops and seems to think he has a hay fever type allergy, to either grass or pollen (which seemed strange as he is 7yrs old and surely he would have had it before now). She advised me not to run him in the field I usually let him off lead in, which I think he's missing.
He just seems a bit down and I feel sorry for him and hope it won't be long to he's back on form.
I didn't even know dogs suffered from hay fever!

Hi

My black lab (sadly passed away aged 15 this year) had hay fever, she was about that age when she started with it. Vet put her on piriton and evening primrose. She followed all the symptoms humans do, so when the pollen count was high, she was worse.

If it was a particularly bad year for hay fever sufferers, she would have to go on steroid tablets for several months.

Funnily enough my daughter has a cavalier king charles, and she is 5 years and has suffered with hayfever for the last couple of years. This month the vet has had to put her onto steroids too.

Once they are sorted on their meds, they all have run in the park, played on the grass with no problems.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

Dee

This is the same treatment our vet advised for Finn's "hayfever". His trigger is fungi from August to November.

I also add starflower oil to his diet and rather than keep him inside I hose him down with warm water after any prolonged running around in grass. Hosing down Ben's legs and belly after a trip to the park might help him too.

Apparenlty you can buy bee pollen that actually helps with allergies, I think the best one you can get is from New zealand, you have to give a small test before you give it properly, but from what I have heard its marvelous with hay fever and hey fever related alergies. I will do a search and post a link.

Mo

heres a link.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Proces...fits&id=469984

I suggest you do a google search and find out more information on this it may help?

I understand honey produced within a five mile radius of where you live is very good, it is made with the pollen from local trees/plants so can help desensitise your dog to local pollen (add a little warm water to the honey and the dog will usually drink it ).
You can get local honey from farmers markets/womens institute stalls and health food shops.

Hi Pam , my dog also has allergies. When I first noticed a rash on her belly , I asked my vet about it and he suggested using steroid cream if it didn't clear up. He also suggested a Hills prescription diet. After talking about it , we agreed that I would keep an eye on the rash and if it didn't improve , we would go ahead and treat it. He asked if she was insured so I expect the treatment would be very expensive. So , I started off by washing her belly after walks. That helped a lot , but she was still getting rashes. At the time , she had a wool blanket in her bed. I changed that for a fleece and the rash disappeared soon after changing her blanket. Later on in that year , she had a similar rash after eating lamb , and this year , at a show , she had been lying on the grass and had the same rash later that day. The show field had been used for sheep , tell tale bits of wool and sheep poo everywhere . My dog is allergic to sheep ! Since I rehomed her last January at 18 months old , I have found out that she is allergic to a lot of things. I changed her diet too , as certain foods also triggered a rash , made her very itchy all over and once she was covered in hives. She was fed on Pedigree Complete (full of nasty additives) when I first got her . Now she has Burns, which she is doing very well on. It took a while to discover that her allergies were in fact diet related ( and sheep ), so I now avoid everything with artificial flavouring , colour and preservatives , grains (wheat , barley and maize) and soya. When I decided to try Burns , I sent an email to them to ask for samples of their food. They gave me some very good advice and they sent me loads of free samples. 2 of every variety and 2 extra of their chicken and rice, and 2 extra fish and rice.Now I've got her on a good holistic diet with no nasty additives , she rarely gets a rash. She has been itchy for just over a week though. I had taken her for a walk in a freshly cut barley stubble field. I give her antihistamine whenever she needs it. I discussed it with my vet , who recommended Piriton , but agreed that Benadryl was also ok to give her. I use Benadryl for children which is a syrup.

Thanks everyone,
Missysmum, my vet also asked about Ben's diet but it doesn't have additives so she didn't think this would be the problem.
The tablets cleared the rash up but he still has the runny eyes. As he is a spaniel, he looks really sad
I really think it is a grass/pollen allergy as I have noticed it is worse after the grass is cut or when he walks in long grass.
Today he wasn't bad but I think that is because it is lashing down here
I was getting a bit worried as soon as tablets and steroids were mentioned as Ben is not insured
I have given him piriton and he does seem better on that, so I guess I will be looking for the pollen count in the weather reports from now on!!