Allergic reaction?

Hi everyone,

We have had Megan for about 4 days now. She is a 12 week old Olde English Bulldogge. She is great! On Monday we noticed a pink spotted rash all over her belly and chest. It doesn't seem to be anywhere else on her body. She caught a couple fleas while playing outside, so we went straight away to the vet to buy Frontline. The only thing is, we aren't 100% sure she had the rash before or after the Frontline application. Her breeder said that Megan had never played in tall weeds like we have allowed her to do, she loves tumbling in them in the field next to our house. We aren't sure if this rash is due to fleas, the Frontline treatment, or the grass and weeds! I'm sure it is not her food, we have not changed her diet, she is eating the same kind of food she was at the breeder's home. We gave her a dose of Benadryl after making sure it was safe with the vet, but it hasn't helped the rash at all. She is very itchy all the time. We see no fleas on her anymore, but she still scratches all the time. Does anyone have any ideas? We will take her to the vet right away if needs be, but I decided I would check here for ideas first. I'm dreading the vet bills, it is $300 for an allergy test alone. But, that's what we signed up for when we brought Megan home! Thanks for any advice, I appreciate it!

Hmm, it's difficult when you can't be certain of the cause. I suppose being exposed to so many different things in such a short period of time has made it impossible for you to rule ny one of them out. I would probably go to the vets to be safe. They may just initially treat the reaction and wait and see if it happens again, I don't know. My mums dog has a really bad flea allergy and sounds exactly as you are describing. She puts my dads steroid based eczema ointment on it for a few days and it clears up a treat.

Try bathing her in hibiscrub solution (available at the vets or equine stores) and keep her out the tall weeds for a week to see if there is much improvement, its the only way to try any rule things out

Allergies to grasses and weeds can very common. My vet has always been able to get a good idea about what has caused similar problems without doing any allergy tests. They can sort of go off what the symptoms are. For example we had a staffy X who broke out in huge hives that popped out through his coat that the vet said were most likely caused by a bee sting, even though we never saw any bees. Unfortunately like with humans some things can have an increasingly bad reaction with each exposure, so it would be worth checking with your vet to find out what the cause is so that there is not a worse reaction next time. Better safe than sorry, and you can be upfront with them if you don't want to fork out for allergy tests.Also, with long grasses and stuff, do you get any snakes in your area? That might just be something we have to think of here in Australia, they won't cause an allergy but many people lose animals to bites.