Yeast infection & possible allergy? Help!

Hi everyone,

Ive not been on here for a while but am kind of hoping you guys can help me out i apologise in advance for the long post

I brought a French Bulldog puppy just over 4 weeks ago, she has just turned 6 months old. When i got her i noticed she was a little itchy, nothing major but slightly. She was being fed lamb and rice james wellbeloved for breakfast and having raw turkey in the evening. I knew nothing about raw so changed her onto Jollyes K9 Optimum (Chicken and puppy) as my staffy does really well on that food.

A week later the itching got bad, she was scratching her ears to the point she caught the inside and made it bleed, she was rubbing her head and face on the floor or on your leg and licking at her paws and front legs, i googled it and found loads of stuff on Frenchies with allergies and also loads on ear infections, so i took her to the vets that monday morning. The vet was adamant it was a food allergy and sent us away with Piriton tablets and told to give 2 - 3 times a day and start her on a new food to see if that helps. He also gave me Advocate for her to rule out fleas etc and he said her ears were all clear despite the scratching.

I left the vets and went straight to Jollyes and after speaking to the lady in Jollyes for ages about what she feeds her 7 etc etc i decided to give Proplan sensitive Salmon and rice a go, now from this point on i know i went wrong now im looking back but it was so heartbreaking to watch her scratching at herself that i thought i was helping her but in fact i may have made it worse by changing so many foods in such a small amount of time. I didnt change foods gradually cause i was sure they were causing her to flame up, now im not sure. Like i said i tried the proplan but after 3 days i thought she seemed no better and after more reading online i decided it must be the rice in the food causing it so i put her on James Wellbeloved, Turkey and Veg. She wasnt keen on this food and still no improvement so i stopped all dry food and resorted to boiling her a chicken up with some rice thinking that would give her belly a chance to settle and hopefully get out her system whatever was causing the reaction. Up to this point she was having piriton 3 times a day and although all the food changes had gone on and her stools had got softer she didnt have diarrea. So i put her on the boiled chicken and rice and decided to ring the vets and ask if i could speak to someone about the allergy testing as it was killing me to watch her hurting herself scratching. The minute i put her on chicken and rice she got diarrea and even the vet said thats rare as its so bland.

All that happened from one monday to the next monday, (i know i changed too much too soon but it really was unbearable to watch). Anyway the nurse rang back and explained a little about a broad spectrum allergy test so i booked her in the same day to have it done, but when i got there i explained all the food changes and he said that a food allergy was still top of the list for him. However, by this point she had a few little scabs where she had been scratching and had started to lose hair round her ears, eyes and top of her head and cheeks so he scraped some skin and put some tape between her toes and went and had a look under the microscope. He came back and said he had found some yeast and that it could be what the problem is or it could be the allergy has caused the yeast. So he gave me some Malaseb shampoo and told me to bath her 1 - 2 times a week and keep her on one food for 6 - 8 weeks. He said i should see an improvement in 2 weeks after she has 4 baths.

This friday just gone i woke up in the morning and she had scratched holes in the side of her face that were bleeding. Ill be the first to admit i know hardly nothing about feeding raw but by this point i had lost all hope in the ingredients that were going into the dry food and i needed to know EXACTLY what she is eating, so i went to the butcher and got a weeks worth of pet cuts which had beef in, she had that for breakfast and tea yesterday and breakfast this morning but her poo now looks like running black tar, so i went to pets at home and got her there raw turkey packs as i know she was ok on the tukey when i got her, shes only had that for dinner and hasnt had a poo yet so ill give that a little while and see how we go.

This whole time she has been taking her piriton religiously 3 times everyday to try and at least get rid of the symtoms for her. I also read up online that giving live yogurt can help with yeast so i was giving her a spoon of that for 2 days last week but then i stopped as i wasnt sure if that was going to help with the "food elimination."

Im so confused about what to do and how to help her, yesterday i brought her one of those plastic cones to go on her while shes in her crate cause it seems to be through the night shes scratching her skin open and im saving one of her piritons for bedtime too she just went rigid when i put the cone on her, i cried myself to sleep cause i felt so bad leaving it on her but i didnt want her to hurt herself anymore she barely slept last night as she wouldnt move so she kept falling asleep sitting up, by 5 this morning i couldnt take it any more so i got up with her. Today i put a pair of toddler socks on her back feet and put hair ties on them while i popped out cause i couldnt bring myself to put the cone back on her head. Shes had her 3rd bath today and because of all the food changes its hard to say if there is any improvement and now to top it off my staffy is now scratching more than normal, but i dont know if im just being paranoid lol i asked the vet if the yeast could be passed on and he said cause xena is 2 and a half and healthy her immune system will be able to fight that off.
Ive ordered some Braggs apple cider vinegar that should be here tomorrow as well.

Im really at a loss and need someone to tell me where im going wrong and what to do from here so please absolutely any input will be gratefully received

I really feel for you I can't advise you on foods or treatment. I just think you should follow the vets advice, stay with one food and do the shampoo treatment. He said improvement in 2 weeks.Not sure there's a quick fix for it but hopefully other members can advise better.

Thanks Eileen, I know I made a big boo boo keep changing her food I think I was hoping for a miracle cure lol it's horrible seeing her scratch when she's already lost hair and cut herself. She's now in bed with her socks on, hopefully someone on here has had a similar situation and can tell me there will be light at the end of the tunnel

Sorry to say this, but because you care too much, you're making everything worse... First of all, as you already know yourself you MUST NOT switch so many foods so quickly! You went through 3 different brands of kibble within a week. Without changing slowly. The effect of food will be seen only after a few days. Then you switched to cooked chicken and rice. Then you tried feeding raw but only gave beef. Were there any meaty bones in it? Or was it JUST meat? If you give too much meat and not enough meaty bone, the stool will be loose. I would suggest you to start feeding grain-free kibble for now. And stick to it while reading and learning about raw (if you're ready to feed the dog raw diet). Many dogs are allergic to all the oats, corn, wheat, cereal stuff in the kibble and their allergies stop after moving to grain free food. If that doesn't help it may mean that the dog is allergic to some meat. Lots of owners then move to raw because only by feeding raw you will be able to identify what meat causes allergy. You simply start of with ONE source of protein (e.g. everything you feed comes from chicken - neck, heart, wings, breast). If for a couple of weeks everything seems ok, then you add beef. If you see any changes then you take the beef out. And so on. Several of my friends have allergic dogs. Almost all of them were able to switch to raw or grain-free kibble and dogs are happy and not itchy. Only one dog is still struggling but she's a different story...
Can I just ask why the dog was sold at that age already? (I'm just curious if it had anything to do with her problematic allergy...)

I know I made it all worse by swapping so many foods but when reading up online everything I was reading was saying different stuff. First I was just trying to change the meat which was why I went from the chicken flavour on the k9 optimum to the salmon in the petplan but then when the vet said about the yeast I then read loads online again and found that nearly all the grain free kibble has potato or sweet potato which from what I've read feeds the yeast infection which is why I switched straight to raw so I can rule out all grains and potato. As for why she was sold I'm not entirely sure. The lady I got her from breeds frenchies but my one was brought from Lithuania and shipped to her and from the paperwork I've seen I would say she only had her about 6 weeks. I'd love to blame her and say that she probably knew something was up but the truth is like I said at the beginning of my first post, when I got her she was a little itchy but she she is much worse now so I really don't know.

This morning she has turned that Turkey down. She's not interested in it all but her poo is more solid today than yesterday. I really don't know what to do for the best.

Now she has just been sick

I think there are a few things that need to be addressed here, I cant understand if you puppy is so bad, why the vet has not given a course of steroids to help reduce the itching, it must be horrendous for the pup, its all very well finding the cause and solution, but in the mean time your pup needs to be comfortable, and from my understanding (taken from my vet) piriton in this kind of situation is useless, you may as well be giving her smarties .

The wash and advocate should help, but it will take a while, if at all........

I would be back at the vets demanding more action, OR change vets.

As you have said yourself the food issue , is going well,you DO need to stay on a food for a period of time, and to be honest at this point I think I would be raw feeding her ..for a few mths, get it settled and then you can settle with what suits her.

Now the other point that flashed up for me, is you say your breeder got the pup from Lithuania........ in your shoes I would have wanted to know why/how she did that.

I am not sure if you are aware of the illegal puppy trade, was your dog brought in to this country legally, had she had her rabies vaccine, have you got all the paper work to back this up, pups cannot be brought into the UK till they are around 15/16 weeks old, due to the time scale on the rabies vaccine, what reputation had your breeder got, does she show her dogs, (a reason why she may import a pup) I would hate to think you have supported (unwillingly) the illegal puppy trade.

I may well be jumping to conclusions that are not there, but given your account I would want to be 100% sure I bought from a good breeder and I bought a healthy pup.

Hope you can get this sorted soon.

Hiya Jackie

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure on circumstances of how or why she was brought over all I know is she was, I have a puppy passport for her which have her rabies jabs and everything else in and she was 16 weeks old when her passport was stamped to say she was fit to travel. Like I said I don't know the ins and outs of why she was brought over then sold on but the lady I got her from does show and breed her frenchies.

As for food I've just ordered her a bag of orijen 6 fish I'll try her on that when it gets here and stick at it. What you said about watching her in pain when she scratches is absolutely right. It's heartbreak and that's why I was so keen to keep trying different stuff but I know I haven't helped her. So I'll start afresh with the orijen when it gets here, as for the piriton again I think your right, it doesn't seem to be making much difference.

I've got Braggs apple cider vinegar hopefully coming today and I'm going to go and buy some acidophilus pills and some coconut oil to hopefully help with the symptoms as well as carrying on her malaseb baths. Other than that I really don't know what else to try. Thanks again for your reply

Can I ask what is puppy's pedigree name? Just because I'm Lithuanian and I know many breeders there so maybe I can find out what kennel the puppy is from. It might be easier to figure out the problem if you know whether her parents have allergies. If there is no pedigree then the puppy is either way brought in for bad purposes - no honest breeder would import a puppy that was sold by a back yard breeder. In which case I would also be making sure she has no worms and her vaccinations are real...

Thats good, have you spoken to the breeder to ask if pup suffered the same with her, or has this just started with you,

Try and find out how she was kept, (in the house/kennel) what the breeder fed her and so on ...

Try and see what if anything has changed.... from one home to the other.

Have you considered speaking to the vet about steroids, these will at least stop the itching and settle her condition down...

A few yrs ago Millie suddenly developed a real nasty allergy, her skin was red and sore she got no rest through the itching, (thats when my ve told me about piriton being useless) we did all the usual things, the malaseb baths, Advocate, skin scrapes , change of food, after a couple of courses of steroids which settled her irritation down, it just went as quickly as it came.

Another thing I would try, is get some Thornit, and rub between her toes and in her ears... this will not harm her, but if the irritation is caused by mites it may just help get rid of them.