Skin- and coatdiseases in GSD's?

Hi
Can anyone tell me a little about possible skindisease in GSD's?

My friend has a semi-longhaired bitch, Bella, she'll turn 1 on tuesday. She always schratches herself a lot and yesterday I noticed that an area on her ear is completely hairless, reddish and with a few scrabes. I'm going to the vet tomorrow, but would just like to hear if anyone could tell me if her food could be a trigger?
I would like to ppost a picture, but I dont have a digital camera, so it would take me about a week getting it developed

Jeanette

It could very well be related to her food, or she may have a mite/flea infestation. Best to get the vet to check for fleas and/or do a skin scraping to see if it is mites.

If it wasn't that, would you or your friend be prepared to change her food?

My 9 yr old EBTxBoxer was always chewing and scratching herself before we changed her onto raw. She also had a cough ever since she contracted a virus when she was 3. The most she ever stopped coughing over the 6 years was for a week. The vets had given up on her (she'd been on various medications for the 6 years), since changing her to raw, nearly 6 months ago now, she has completely stopped coughing, she can even run around like a mad thing with the Presa pup, without coughing And she has stopped chewing and scratching herself.

Before being fed raw she was on Hill's Science Plan, which apparently is one of the worst commercial foods (though it is also one of the most expensive...)

Yes if its the food of course we'll change the food. Right now we are feeding the same because they eat together ever day, and then its the easiest.

You'll never guess what we're feeding: Hills Science Plans Natures Best!!!!!

I just hope we can find something else that both dogs can thrive on. I really don't want to feed raw, I can't really explain why, but when Luna got a raw bone (she was 4 months old) she had diarrhoea for an entire month afterwards. Of course if Luna (my lab) won't thrive on the same food Bella is thriving on (if it is foodrelated) then we'll just have to take it from there.

Thank you so much, I'll write what the vet says tomorrow.

Sorry its the first time I've made a quote, so don't know if it's done right.

Jeanette

Hello again!

Was just wondering, was it a raw lamb bone that you gave Luna? A lot of dogs can't handle lamb and do end up with diarrhoea, but do very well on chicken and pork. Usually bones have the opposite effect!

Take care,

Lizzy.

PS. Just wanted to say that your English is amazing! I'd love to be able to speak (let alone write) another language as well as you do. At some point I'll get my act together and learn Spanish properly! I'm just lazy ops:

No it wasn't lamb. I think it was either pork or oxe. Can't remember which one, but there is one of them dogs can't handle and it wasn't that I chose

Thanx we have english in school, so its not all learned from tv I love spanish and did take some classes in it for a couple of years. But took french aswell and got a bit confused because I would have the two classes on the same day, so I ended up speaking spanish at the french lessons and french at the spanish lessons

By the way I went to the vet today. He checked out almost all of Bellas body. He said it could very likely be a foodallergy. He gave her a shot to take the itching and then I got some cremelike stuff to put on the spot on the ear. He said she had a lot of small wounds on her innerlegs and stomach. If she isn't better in 14 days we should start getting skinscrabes and bloodtests.

We use a Halti on Bella and just here a couple of hours ago we discovered a big burn like scrabing wound right where the halti was on her jaw. Poor thing. I got mad at her because she kept trying to rub the halti off. And I didn't get it.....

I feel so bad

Jeanette

Hi Jeanette,

Just found this, thought it may be relevant to Bella:

http://p069.ezboard.com/fworkingpres...picID=19.topic

Lizzy.

Bella, my GSD cross has skin allergies to fleas. I live near the beach so we have a lot of sand fleas outside. A little bit of fleas, and he's got hotspots. I battle it successfully with Adams flea and tick shampoo, followed by Adams flea and tick spray.

Lizzy, I have my adult dogs on the Hills Science Diet adult! Although most of their diet consists of meat, vegetables, etc., they do get a small amount of Science Diet per day. They seem ok with it, but I'm going to switch it anyway. I didn't know that was a bad one. I saw no beet pulp in it and I think it said made in gravy or broth, with real meat, so I thought it was good. Time to switch again... Back to the drawing board I heard Canidae was good. Maybe I'll try that one next. Been meaning to.

Bella, Canidae is supposed to be good for dogs with allergies too I heard, but I haven't tried it, and other than fleas that I've gotten under control, my dogs have no allergies, so don't know if it's true.

Lizzy: Just saw the link. Will read it tomorrow as I'm off to bed now. Thanx.

Barbara: I don't think we can get Canidae here in Denmark. But my friend is going to get Bella allergy tested first before we start changing the food.
But thanx for the suggestion.

Jeanette

You can get anything you want on the internet

Yeah if you have a visa card! Neither I or my friend have one, so that complicates things a bit

Jeanette