My Dog the Vegetarian

by Gerri Smith and Cody

Allergies! What a pain, not only to our dogs but to us owners too. . . .

Our dog Cody is going to be 6 years old on March 20th of this year. He has suffered with a hit or miss game of trying to identify his skin problems for at least 2 years, we as his family too who has to put up with his constant chewing and scratching day and night. He chews until he gets big sores on and around his belly under his armpits and Inside of his legs, sometimes his Insides of his ears get red, and around his mouth he gets sores. They start out like little pimples filled with water, then as he breaks them open they spread, and spread allover. The vet said they are mirror images of each other, which means #'he gets one on one side of his body he gets It In the same spot on the other side as well, and that he does. The vet thinks they are food related allergies being that’s when he seems to break out the most when he is fed any type of table scraps that include meat. He was on a chicken based food for a while, with table scraps on the side to make him eat his food he does not like to eat, I have to make him eat every day I was told to just let his food sit and he would eat when he was hungry like I had done with my other dogs but Cody Is a space head he is not Interested in eating I let him go one time for 4 days before I went back to the bribing. So now that he has broken out again he is not allowed any meat at all our dog has become a Vegetarian, he is on a vegetable base high fiber food, Science diet fight.

His treatment is as follows he had a steroid shot at the vet, I have to give him a bath every 7 days until the sores are gone with a shampoo called Pyoben It has Benzol peroxide in it to dry sip the sores, he gets 750 mg. of Keflex antibiotic 2 times a day along with his 50 mg. of Benadryl 3 times a day for the itch. This time when he clears up I will try hard not to give in to that look of ‘Hey don't throw that food away, I would love to have it’. We all know how hard that look is! But I guess that is what it takes to not have an itchy scratchy dog than that’s what It will be... My dog the Vegetarian!!!!! There are other food out that contain meals that are not as popular like rabbit venison, and kangaroo so maybe later down the road we can buy one of these to see how he does. Well good luck to any of you who have this similar problem. I hope that yours are not food because it Is very hard not to give them that scrap of meat.