Yeah our little dog likes to ride in the trucks(s) as well. All we have to do is say," wanna go for a drive or ride?" Instantly he makes a run for the door, jumping up and down, man these little critters have energy. He likes us to open the back window so he can look at the cars behind use, being a small dog, if he stands on his back legs, his head is at just the right height for looking out the window. We used to take his leash off in the vehicle, until one time when he was 3 or 4 months old, he jumped through the back window as we were going down the road. One time when he was around 6 months old, we put him in the truck with the windows down as we were doing something in the immediate area, I looked over and he jumped out the passenger side window without hesitation, its only a 2wd truck but still his belly sits about 4 inches off the ground and thats probably a 4 foot drop.

We were using rawhide bones at one point but either someone on this site or the vet suggested against it, so we stopped. We will have to give the pro plan dog food a chance.

Lucky for use he picks up on tricks pretty easily, if we attach a certain command with " for cheese" and refuse to give it to him until he does it, its only a matter of time, he seems to remember what gets him fed.

Thanks for the advice

 

My professional opinion wuld agree with the suggestion tha JRT's are not very good with kids (unless bred by someone with small kids).

The itching thing raises lots of questions for me. Benadryl does not work for all animals, as with people. Claritin has been out for long enough, and having been working in multipe pet hospitals over the last 6 years, have never seen it prescribed. Other things to try include Tavist, chlorpheniramine, and hydroxyzine. These things are pretty safe and available over the counter at your drug store. Most vets don't jump immediately to using steroids (prednisone, prednislone) because of the potential for long term damage (causing Cushing's Syndrome, not heart explosion!).
Another thing about JRT's is that they are VERY prone to allergies. And guess what?
You can have him tested! Some places (Heska) do it with a blood test, and a veterinary dermatologist may do regular intra-dermal skin testing. This is expensive, but much less than the cost of medicating this dog for 15 years and the medication not working very well. You can also get desensitization shots for many non-food issues, and for food things you can eliminate the allergen from his diet.

I have seen this sort of thing so many times I cannot count. A large majority of those who did allergy testing and shots were satisfied and the dog was normal in a few months, and most were done with the shots in 2 years. For a young dog like you have, I think it would be a good decison to look into it.

I would try to find a veterinary dermatologist in your area and have a consult at least. Just my educated, experienced $.02. Good Luck!

 

splashtm

That makes sense, we thought about having an allergy test done but for one reason or another did not do it. Glad you brought that up, I will check into it tomorrow and see what I come up with. Our vet give him prednisone the first mention of allergies. The vet also tried to make the comment, well thats why I suggested claritin to get him off prednisone, when in reality we asked about alternatives to prednisone due to the fact it doesn't seem to work much anymore, oh well that doesn't really matter much.

Funny you mention jack russells and being raised around kids, there is a neighbor kid that he has seen about once a week for maybe a few minutes in passing, since he was a few weeks old and he doesn't bother him at all, the pup even ignores him after the initial excitement of seeing him, other than that we get mild to extreme dislike for certain kids.

Appreciate the response












Thought I would mention, I know I stated the pup was back to normal, I may have been mistaken, he did come around to respond to use more but seems all he wants to do is sleep and its been 4 days now. This may sound odd but its almost like he is depressed. I suppose its too soon to expect him to be 100%. later

 

A note on flea drops. there is a website hartzvictims and if you use flea drops you need to check this out. We almost lost my daughters kitten a few weeks ago and we learned a very very expensive (both financial and mental) lesson. I am not advertising but it is very important to check out what is going on.
I also want to add to never ever give an animal human meds without asking a vet. That is just common sense. justbecause osmeone says they gave a dog a human med there are side effects that may not be immediately seen. Always seek the advice of a vet. If you are not happy with one vet seek out another and even a third.
There will be a vet who will be able to help you. As a final step call your states "state vet" they are like the head honcho for all the vets in your state. Normally they are in the state ag department.
I also agree with the vet departments of the state universities. Great source of info.
Hope you get it figured out.

 

I usually recommended that people in your situation change their dogs food to a Lamb and rice diet. Do it gradually or your dog will hate you, the food, and you're back at square one.

Vitamin E and Aloe shampoos usually help. DO NOT USE flea products, it's one of the worse things you can do. Try an oatmeal shampoo, or something like Johnson and Johnson's Baby shampoo. This will keep your animal clean without adding harsh chemicals to their coat.

Also do not excessively bathe the animal. Optimal baths are every 2-3 weeks. Some dogs can handle being bathed more often, but this usually dries out their coats, and leads to other problems.

Stay away from Costco, pedigree, and other generic brands. Stick with a good lamb and rice food such as Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, or Pro Plan. Many of the dogs I saw with these symptoms found relief in changing their animals diet. You would be surprised at the difference that a good food can make with your pet.

Good Luck

--Juan

 

quarterhorsemom

I agree, it still sucks that the vet is the one recommending the claritin and it caused such an effect. Appreciate the advice





fn250


We have been giving him lamb and rice by purina for a long time now, it has made little to no difference. I even looked over the ingredients the other day and it contains corn, the one thing we were supposed to avoid, and thought we had been, it even contains chicken byproducts. We will get one of the brands you listed and see what happens. I cooked up some plain rice and flavored it with ranch dressing, , which contained non of the things we were supposed to avoid, one teaspoon per cup of rice and cup of water and he eat that up like it was the best thing he'd ever eaten, we give him a little as a replacement treat, works so far. Thanks for the advice




I spoke with a vets office today and they want $250 to do an allergy blood test and no telling what the medicine costs, we are gonna check around more and see what we come up with.

 

JW, Here's some more info. I thought about it, and this stuff might help as well. The purina isn't that good of a food (you notice by the ingredients) go with one of the others, and try it out for about 2-3 weeks.

There are also skin/coat supplements that I used for my pitbulls. They contained the Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, they were gel tabs that I picked up at the local Petsmart. Basically a small red gel tab that looked like a tylenol gel tab.

It would work really well. and when they got really bad hot spots, to the point were it was bleeding and very tender. I would use a skin oinment that I found at my local PetCo (different store from where I got the FA supplements), it was made by Pet Gold, it contained Aloe Vera, an antibiotic (guard against infection), and fly/skeeter repellant. Would work wonders, even helped the hair grow back. See if you can find something similar.

Don't give up, remember you are all that the little dog has in this world. That lil rascal depends on you, and by the description of everything you're doing, it sounds like you are a great owner.

 

fn250

Thanks.



Well we have been giving him omega 3 fatty acids (small breed) since the first person recommened it in this thread (3 or 4 months ago?), I honestly don't think it helped but we continue to give it to him daily, we may switch brands with the dog food and see what happens. We will definitely change the dog food, and we just bought a large bag of dog food, haha figures. The dog seems to still be odd acting, the bad part when he does show signs of being normal and wants to rough house with me, I have to ignore him or try and get him to do something else, as right now I am having a reaction to poison ivy and his biting could possibly cause it to spread. Oh well.


Funny story came to mind, the other day my wife took him outside, there was a saint bernard (that was loose) sitting about 30 feet away, this 20lb pup was at the end of the leash pulling as hard as he could and barking, trying to get to this dog, crazy little dog, he did the same thing to a rot willer (spelling?) a few months back, luckily both times the larger dogs just walked away with little concern over this crazy little dog barking. haha

Thanks again for the advice

 

When I was in the process of researching the Irish Terrier breed, I found very good dog food info on the official website. Since terriers in general seem to have the same characteristics, I think you might find some of the info helpful. There is also another website that actually does a comparison on just about every available dog food. It is intense if not a bit overwhelming. Here are the sites. When you get some free time, check them out.

doberdogs.com/menu.html
irishterriers.com (under irish terrier info in the menu, then click dog food)

Robin

 

splashtm


Appreciate it. I noticed you mentioned shots for 3 years when the vet I spoke with stated he would need medicine for life. I suppose its a $250 gamble to see what exactly he would need. I think we are gonna try and clean the pups diet up completely, get a better dog food and see if there is an improvement, if not then looks like we'll be doing the blood or skin test. Appreciate it


NH-Hottie


Yeah overwhelming sounds about right, I just wanted a little house dog. Who would have thought there would be so much more to it. I thought we did our homework on the ups and downs of owning a terrier but seems I missed the part where they could have allergies. Too late now. I will check those sites out. Thanks

 

I have a question.

My vet and a few others, made the comment, stay away from corn and corn products when it comes to feeding your pup. I took a look at the site comparing foods and then looked at recommended home made treats, they all contain corn or some form of it. Isn't that kind of odd? Wouldn't a dog food company know that corn is on the top of the, don't feed this to your dog list?


We are trying a dog food call natural choice by nutra, it was the only one that didn't have some form of soy, wheat or corn. Even the Iams, science diet, etc. contained those things. Anyone familliar with this product, I believe its made my nutra? later

 

When I was doing food comparisons, I found the same thing. Fortunately my IT does not have any allergies, so I never really had to worry too much about it. You might want to dig around the IT website to see if there are any posts on skin allergies on their forums. These are a bunch of very knowledgable people who are very dedicated to the Irish Terrier breed. I'm sure they wouldn't mind you asking the question, even though you have another type of terrier. They can probably give you some good suggestions.

Robin

 

Corn is a great filler for food, it is inexpensive, and a very good source of carbohydrates for animals. That's the reason, corn is found in so many treats, foods, etc. Here is a link to the IAMS website, explaining a lil more. IAMS is a great company (they make Eukanuba - best readily available food for your pet IMHO).

http://www.iams.com/en_US/jhtmls/nut...questionid=360

I have heard of nutra, but I cannot comment on it, as I do not have any personal experience with it. Good Luck.

 

my lab kinda had the same problem, he had this hot spots, so what we did was get this spray stuff called veterinarian's best hot spot inch relief spray, and then spray it in the areas it seems to stop the itching but he likes the taste of this stuff, wierd dog, so ive been puting a cone on his head, its to keep hime from licking and scratching

 

I fed my dogs Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice for 3 years. They did very well on it, then my Chesapeake had some skin issues from sand and pine needles, so we switched them to Natural Balance (petco has it. it has no corn, but is a bit more $$$) because it has more Omega-6 and 3 fattyacids and I didn't want to buy supplements. I still recommend the Nutro. It's a good feed.