I have two dogs that both eat a
healthy no grain, raw diet. One is a
constant scratcher, the other rarely scratches.
Brie, the itchy dog, is
a Westie mix. True, this breed is notorious for their itchy skin but with many
dogs what starts out as a real problem, develops into a habit even after the
underlying cause is cured.
We discovered that Brie had sand
fleas. We live at the beach and she plays on the sand every single day. Since
we wash her at least twice a week and were well past flea season, we didn’t
suspect fleas were the cause of her distress. Once we found out what the
problem was, we treated her immediately with a whole host of remedies until
every last flea was gone.
Weeks went by and she was still
scratching. We double checked and there were no fleas. But she scratched with
determination and could hardly walk down the street without stopping for a
scratch. She would even wake us up at night with the sounds of her biting,
licking and scratching. Finally she started to develop actual lesions from the
constant scratching, which only made her want to scratch those areas more.
It seemed to be a never-ending
cycle until I noticed that Brie seemed to forget about her discomfort when she
was playing, eating or chewing on a bone. Distraction seemed to be an excellent
method- so we gave her a full schedule of bone chewing, game playing and toys
to occupy her time.
Restraint is also another tool we
used. You could try an e-collar (if you do look up Comfy Cones for a softer
alternative) but what I did is purchase a a soft pair of inexpensive booties
($5.99) so that if she did scratch her paws wouldn’t have direct contact with
her skin.
In addition, when she woke up at
night and started scratching, I gave her Sleepytime Tonic , an all natural
herbal blend that helps to calm dogs. This relaxed her enough so that she
forgot about the itch and went back to sleep.
Amazing! Between her full agenda of
bones and bully sticks, Sleepytime Tonic and her booties, scratching levels are
down to a few times a day!
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