Help pls! 7mos old white bully with pink irritated skin
Submitted by Oh Diesel on April 16, 2013 - 12:01amMy lil guy, Diesel, is a 7 mont old white bully with ongoing skin issues. He had a rash around his private area a few months ago, after a bloodtest, skin scraping and multiple follow up visits, he was put on antibiotics, topical cream and an anti-septic shampoo. Those bumps went away after this but now I've noticed the skin on his back becoming pinker and pinker and then a couple of days ago he obviously scratched so hard that he started bleeding. I don't know if this is the same outbreak that he had earlier, but I've treated it with the leftover cream & shampoo and it seems to have gotten a bit better. I was wondering if any of you have had this with your bullies. Any help/ advice/ suggestions would be very much appreciated. Picture is attached. Other changes before the rash appeared: we curently feed him cooked food "meaty muffin" - and we did change the main protien ingredient to beef (prior to that he was having turkey and chicken); he also had his rabies shot a couple of days before the rash started.
Many thanks in advance
So did the skin scraping...
also include checking for demodex? Sometimes they will have an outbreak of demodex (mange) after a rabies shot since their immune systems are lowered by the shots, teething, etc. Could be allergies also, any rug shampoos, detergents (tide is the worst), bug sprays, etc can cause a rash. Our guy just got over a staph infection. We tried two antibiotics before using Simplicef which finally got rid of it. Is the food you feed him grain free? I'm not familiar with that brand.
Re: Skin Scraping
Thanks for taking the time to respond, Kathy Ollie Chester and Newman. Yes, the original skin scraping (back in Feb for his original rash on his underside) did check for demodex; however, this is now on his back so it may be something different. I've shampooed the area with the anti-septic shampoo and have been applying the topical cream and that's helped. I also switched his food back to chicken. The muffins I feed him are not grain-free but they contain organic whole brown rice, organic whole oats, and organic whole barley. He's been on this food for about 2 months now and they only change I've made recently is used beef instead of chicken.
Stay with the food he was eating prior to this
outbreak. Also, stop feeding him the muffins, organic or not, its still a lot of grain, which he doesn't need anyway. Eliminate any treats, just give him his food. When we are trying to find what is causing an issue, it's best to narrow the posibilities.
Maybe another skin scraping at the vet to check for staph or mange.
Good luck
Lynn King CPDT-KA
Barley, rice and oats can be...
a bad combo for bully skin. My first boy couldn't eat any food that had barley in it. I would get him off this food and onto a good no grain food with one protein source (salmon, duck, etc). Just remember that it can take 6 weeks to see a difference after changing food, but I bet it will help.
New Scrape!
Just the Rabies shot itself is enough evidence to have the new scrape. As it has been commented already, it causes immunosuppresion for a short time, just enough for the demodex mite to replicate and mature. Had the same issue with CHAPO exactly as it happened to you guys.
I wouldn´t wait, have the scrape done so you can rule out demodex, and if it demodex its a whole lot easier to treat than say; Staph or any other bacteria.
Good Luck
Agree .... Rescrape for demodex
n/m
Rabies Shot
It could also be a reaction to the rabies shot. Those shots are horrible.
He doesn't need all those grains in that food.
And I agree he might need to be rescraped for demodex.
Thanks for all the helpful comments
Thanks to everyone for their insight and helpful comments. We've been shampooing him 2x a week with pyoben shampoo and applying viaderm cream once a day. His back is still a bit pink but definitely a lot better than when the initial photo was taken on Friday. I think we'll keep doing this for now since it seems to be working. It was probably the same rash that he had on his underside before. I think it might've been what you guys were talking about in terms of being immunosuppressed from the rabies shot. I'm going to keep a very close eye on it. I'll consider putting him back on a non-grain kibble as well. Thanks so much!!