Hives in Pit Bulls

Hey guys. Dr. Larry here from Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. I know it's been a while and well, I'm missing my hair. I think one of the dogs ate it or something like that. Today I'm here with Axel. Axel is a 17 week old male pit puppy. And the topic for today is hives on pits and what it is, what the, how we treat it and what the prognosis is. All right, so hives and puppies. Oh my gosh. Where did Axel go? No, I'm just messing with her. As you guys probably noticed, Axel was a little rambunctious and starting to get a little nervous. So I didn't think it was fair to him to keep him on the table while we did the video so that Axel's with his dad now. Now, in regards to hives, when you have a pit that's starting to have hives at a super young age, so anywhere between, let's say eight to six months of age, typically those hives would be coming, you know, would be coming from food allergies. Now this, the history that Axel had with was that he was having some issues with his skin. Dad got him, he was doing okay, he noticed some skin issues and then he went ahead and changed the food after going to the vet and he got better on the antibiotics and either a steroid injection antibiotic or a anti histamine injection. Then he was good for within about a week. Then about a week or to two weeks later, he ended up starting to have symptoms again. Dad actually switched his food at that time. That was actually the first time he switched it. And what ended up happening was his symptoms. Dad thought that his symptoms started getting better then, then that took about a week. And then after that he ended up having skin issues again. And so now we're seeing him the second time around. Now, I don't know if you guys noticed, but it wasn't really that bad on Axel. Axel had, I want to say, pretty mild symptoms and dad had said this was maybe 40% of the worst of what he had ever been. Now what the dermatologists typically say that if you have a puppy between 0 to 6 months of age, a pit that's 0 to 6 months of age, that's having skin or ear issues, usually it's going to be a food allergy. And when I say usually they say 99%. That's right, 99% of the time it's going to be tied to food allergies. So one of the other things that I also asked dad was is he having Any sort of GI symptoms. So is he having any vomiting, any diarrhea? And when I say diarrhea, I mean it doesn't have to be pure liquid. It could be just kind of soft or, you know, softer than normal. Farting is something else. I know, let's try to keep a straight face when I say this, but farting can be a symptom of GI distress. It's not normal for our patients to be farting, especially pities. If you notice that they're having ear infections, that's something else that could be a clue that they may be having food aller. Especially at this young of an age. Even between 6 to 12 months of age, you will typically have a 90% chance of dogs having a food allergy that's causing these symptoms. It is possible to go ahead and have a dog, have a seasonal allergy, but at this age develop, but it is highly unlikely or very rare. How do we go ahead and diagnose food allergies? So there's a, there are tests out there to go ahead and do food allergy testing. As of right now, we do not think that those tests are accurate or very accurate. And so the dermatologists do not currently recommend blood testing or food allergy testing for dogs. Really the only test is to go ahead and put dogs on prescription diet, ideally for a period of time. Typically it's a minimum. You have to have them on the right diet. If you've selected the right diet for three months and nothing but that diet. Sometimes dermatologists will get so strict with the recommendations on the diet restrictions that they won't even allow the pets to get flavored heartworm medication. Just to give you an idea of how strict they will get sometimes. Now you have to be careful with different prescription foods. Some prescription foods are meant for puppies only 6 months of age or older. Other prescription hypoallergenic prescription foods are meant for dogs that are 12 months of age or older. The foods that I carry in my hospital and they do not sponsor, they're not sponsors or anything like that is Royal Canin. The six month old approved food is the hydrolyzed protein and then the 12 month old approved and above is the ultimino. That being said, if you happen to have a pitta that is a giant, you know, a giant variation of a pit, even sometimes the Ultimino at 12 months of age may be too early because we don't want them on these foods if they're not approved when they're growing. Because we want to Minimize the chances of any sort of growth issues or joint issues or anything like that. Now, in the meanwhile, while we go ahead and switch them to a diet, we do need to treat their infections to get them under control because if we never completely resolve the infection, then we won't know whether or not the food is working. So in this particular case with Axel, what we did was I just put him on, he was using a medicated shampoo. I told him to continue with the medicated shampoo. We put him on some probiotics and then I actually had him go on a food called Forza. Forza is an Italian based company. Again, not a sponsor here, just something that I actually have my own dogs on because they both have food allergies. They manifest in different ways and that seems to control their food allergies pretty well. So the food is the puppy chondro. So chondrocytes are the cells that are in the cartilage. So that's why it's named that way, to be protective of the, of the joints. And it is a fish based diet. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is when your dogs are food allergic, some people get caught up with, oh, well, I want my dog to love the food. Yes, I would want my dog to love my food or their food. But you need to be aware that it's not about them loving the food at this point now it's about getting a food that will go ahead and sit well with their stomach, not cause symptoms like ear infections, skin infections, diarrhea, vomiting, and those kinds of things. So they will eventually eat. They will not starve themselves. And it will only be for a short period. Once we figured out what food works for them, then you can look into, hey, they like this food. This food is not processed. That leads me to the raw food topic, which sometimes people might bring up. And I'm okay with raw foods. I actually feed my own dogs a combination of commercially made raw food. The brand that I feed my dogs, again, they are not a sponsor here is primal. And my dogs were doing great on that. One of them, I think, is now starting to have an issue. Again, it's not because the food is raw, it's because her allergies might be changing. And so that could potentially be an issue with the prescription diets. They only have one thing. What we're told is that they will stop production. They will get all the food off, they will wipe down the conveyor, excuse me, the conveyor belts, and then they will start the new food. So that way there's not even residue of another flavor on that particular conveyor belt for the prescription foods that are hypoallergenic. So just keep that in mind because sometimes people will wonder, well, why can't I use this raw food? Or why can't I use this? You can. You just don't have those claims from those pet food companies that say, hey, we stop production, we wipe down all the conveyor belts to make sure that there are no issues with residue being left from the previous foods. That being said, in terms of prognosis, the dogs have a very good prognosis. Once you find the right food for them, odds are it's smooth sailing and you just got to stick with that. And then little by little, you can go ahead and play out whether or not different things actually cause them to flare. Only do a little bit at a time. So don't give them like a bowl of chicken. If you want to see if it works, give them one little piece of chicken. Then give them the next day, give them two pieces, three pieces, four, and so on to see what they can tolerate. If they do okay or if they don't do okay, then you got to wait two weeks of them being back to normal before you try something else. When I say back to normal, I mean if they start developing a skin infection or an ear infection, it has to be resolved and then they have to be good for two weeks. So keep that in mind. If you guys are doing food trials, it can be frustrating sometimes, but it is something that just hang in there. The last thing that I do want to just touch on is in this particular case, it wasn't. It most likely is not seasonal allergies, but that is something that pities are also prone to is seasonal allergies. Once we get a patient that comes in with those particular with that particular condition, we'll make a video about that and we'll go from there. Thanks for watching. Be safe, subscribe, Share and watch out. It.