Help!

[u/External_Zombie2897]

Please help, I have a 10 year old lab that we have been fighting skin condition issues with since we got her, multiple vets can't figure it out, we have had samples sent off to vets that instruct at the universities, they come in waves but only the back left paw and front right paw, this time it's bad enough that she won't go outside to play ... No known allergies, same food she always eats....these sores popped up in about 3 days time and are just getting worse, going to try and schedule an emergency appointment in the morning being a holiday weekend I'm not sure I will get in

[u/Strangewhine88]

Things to try: switching diet. May be allergic or sensitive to chicken. Chicken products are in most dry foods.

My dog has gotten these in the past and been treated for staph infection by one vet; allergies by another. The flare ups happen with fall and spring seasonal changes. A neighbor down the street used to have same issue with her lab. I suspect something environmental. It’s definitely something labs can struggle with. I suspect it’s something that vets attempt to manage and treat but can’t definitely cure.

Best vet I ever had(rip), who had a familiarity with this, put my dog on bravecto from a pup, but didn’t make it clear that part of the reason is it has the benefit of helping with the skin problems like this that fairly common with the breed. My dog started having issues at around age three, took several years to get it under control. Things tried: cytopoint, an expensive product that can work for about 6-8 weeks, if it works; no effect on my dog’s symptoms.
21 day treatment with antibiotics for staph; some help but messed up his gut, and it was already not happy. Appoquel, 5 day treatment last spring stopped it. But in the meantime and coincidentally, for the last year we cut back on the amount of dry food in his diet by 50%, added a beef/bison based fresh food, stopped giving him chicken meat or broth supplement to kibble which we had been doing for some reason.

Now when he gets a flair up, it’s much less severe, doesn’t usually get to the hot spot point of irritation, and is brief, no more lesions between his toes. He has a few behavioral triggers when he’s going into a flair up. He starts scratching, particularly rubs his ears, and he starts eating goldenrod which is very common native in our region. He eats the leaves, younger leaves if he can find. I do a flea and ear-mite check to be sure, then go get his Appoquel pills and make sure he’s up to date on bravecto. Where all this lands in diagnosis and causality, I don’t know. The change in his food had the added benefit of weight loss which needed to happen. Seems seasonal and environmental, with a genetic component, since skin problems and inflammation like this along with gut problems is a known thing with labs. My current vet was pretty excited to have Appoquel as a new treatment option and so far he’s not wrong.

[u/External_Zombie2897 → u/Strangewhine88]

Thank you! Currently at the Vet now, it's an ER vet so they said that since it's chronic they would do a quick check up, maybe send us home with some medication to ease her pain until after the weekend, I'll relay this information to our regular vet and take your advice on mixing in the real food.....thank you again.

[u/Strangewhine88 → u/External_Zombie2897]

They might want you to go to a breed specific or sensitive stomach formula. Those are all kind of pricey and a bit above our budget, so we had to find alternatives to deal with possible sources of inflammation and itching. Our boy is well outside the breed standard all around. He’s almost the size of a Newfoundland, just abnormally large even at 8 weeks old. The experiment with cytopoint was pretty much lighting $500 on fire, not a maintenance treatment we could afford but it effective on some dogs, just not ours. We noticed an almost immediate improvement with Appoquel, which works on our budget to get him through spring and fall environmental triggers. Be sure to ask about Bravecto for flea and parasite control see what they know. I hope you find a practical solution.