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Sometimes when you have exhausted all other avenues you have to go back to basics. By that I mean the very fuel that every creature on this planet uses to keep it alive and well Food! My Great Dane, Dana had a skin condition that remained annoying despite every investigation and every treatment our vet could think of. If you look at the pictures below you can imagine how uncomfortable she was, how itchy and painful skin like that could be. Also you need to imagine how she was feeling inside as well, how stressed other organs were with the medications and investigations that were becoming part of every day life. Here is her story.
Dana came to live with my family shortly after our German Shepherd big Jack died. I was keeping an eye out for a dog that had the wow factor so I could bring into the schools with me when I called in to give talks on caring for your pet. Nothing like a Great Dane to get the children's attention I thought, when I was offered Dana from her previous owner. She had come to live with her fosterer when she was still a pup having been rescued from a puppy farm. When we first went to see Dana she was thin and balding in several places. Nothing a bit of good grub and a few washes in Tactic wouldn't sort out, I thought. Little did I know. After an initial check up by the vet it was decided that we would increase food intake slowly and treat her skin by washing once a week in Tactic for four weeks.
However, Dana continued to get worse. After four weeks the hair loss was worse than ever, especially around her stomach, inner legs and cheeks. It was decided to do skin scrapings and have them analyzed. These came back negative. While waiting for the skin scrapings to come back Dana developed another condition. When we were walking her early one morning( we had taken to walking at half 6 in the morning so people wouldn't stop and ask us about her) I noticed that there was a lump on the inside leg that wasn't there the day before. I brought her to my own vet who referred her for further x-rays. These revealed that there was abnormal bone growth on normal bone tissue and there was nothing we could do about it, as Dana was only 8 months old and still growing. When the skin tests came back negative and more lacerations appeared on Dana's face and ears, our vet decided to check her for Lupus.
SLE or Systemic Lupus Erythemaosus, to give it its proper title, has become quite common in dogs over recent years. It is an autoimmune disease. There are two types of Lupus which can occur in dogs, SLE or Discoid lupus. Discoid Lupus usually only affects the face, whereas SLE affects the whole body causing limping, skin infections, skin lacerations, weight loss and fatigue. It was decided that while we were waiting for test results we should put Dana onto a course of prednisolone as this would be the normal course of treatment for someone with Lupus and if not Lupus it would help with the itching, and so we waited. But the results came back negative and even though Dana made improvements on the prednisolone she could not stay on them long term. As we withdrew the prednisolone, Dana started to get worse again. We would come down in the morning and find dried blood splattered from the floor to the ceiling from new lacerations. Her incision from spaying would not close for six weeks. Our vet decided to repeat the skin scraping and this time took slivers of skin from in between the toes, from the chest area and the cheek. They came back as positive for demodex mites which are quite hard to find as they live in the hair follicles. Most dogs will overcome a demodex infestation and repair any damage done to the dogs skin by themselves. However, in some dogs that have a compromised immune system, these mites can take hold leaving the dog with an unresponsive and severe case of demodex. This we thought was what was what was happening to Dana and it also left us with two questions to answer. With all bloods normal, what was the cause of the compromised immune system and how were we going to treat it?
Our vet decided to put her on several drugs.
The first drug was Interferon to boost her immune system, then daily doses of Virbamec along with weekly washes first with a medicated shampoo and followed by a wash with Tactic for 4 wks.
After two weeks, I noticed an improvement in her coat and energy levels. After four weeks, all was well and we thought that's it, all we need to do is to put some more weight on to her, not too much mind, because of the abnormal tissue growth, but enough to coat the ribs. Then disaster; two weeks after treatment ended, Dana started chewing her feet again and bald patches started to appear in the usual places. As my husband and I talked about what else we could do for Dana we realized that out of everything that we had changed there was one thing we had not looked at and that was Dana's diet. The more I tried to fatten up Dana the worse her symptoms had become. I had been so focused on sorting her skin out that I had over looked something so basic. Dana may simply be allergic to, if not her food ( we were feeding her a well know and not too cheap brand of dry food, and supplementing it with pasta,rice, chicken raw and cooked veg) then maybe additives in her food. I started researching the additives in her food and I was horrified to find out the origins of some of these were so vague and questionable there was every chance that this was the reason why Dana was having these problems. I had been reassured that the Interferon she was on should have boosted her immune system enough to allow her to reboot itself sufficiently as to be able to fight off the demodex and as the next set of deep tissue skin samples showed it had and more bloods showed that everything was normal, except for her glands which were up and down every few days.
I started to research the raw food diet as I knew several friends who were using this and with a bit of "if it doesn't kill her maybe it will cure her" attitude, I decided to give it a shot. First I read up on it the pro's and con's. Some of which were cleaner teeth, poo that doesn't smell, less farting a big plus,less chance of bloating as your dog will have to chew this food to swallow it (my pack could gobble down food in seconds) and no additives. Some of the con's were you are going to be handling a lot of raw food, you need a chest freezer unless you only had one little dog, the possibility of samonella poisoning (although a recent article in the Irish Independent newspaper, despite its alarming headline, states that the most harmful strains of salmonella have almost been wiped out that and the fact the report is from 2005-2006 )may reassure you otherwise and finally the possibility of bones being lodged and damaging the dogs stomach and bowels are reasons why you need to research and be comfortable with your choice of food. With out ever even looking at using the Barf diet I have had numerous visits over the years for dogs ingesting things such as the pink netting that is wrapped around the Sunday joint. One of our dogs had raided the the bin and this is what was hanging from his back passage the next morning. Memory cards from a playstation was another fun one and on and on I could go. As part of my research I also read two books that I would recommend to anyone considering using this diet. The first book "RAW dog food" by Carina Beth Mcdonald is pro raw diet and the other one "Food Pets Die For" by Ann N.Martin is against the raw diet but predominatly because of the risk of salmonella poising however the author is also against commerical dog food so it was interesting to get two sides of the story.
Which now only leaves one question to be asked and answered. What happened to Dana since I switched. The photos below tell the story, really. There is no more dry bleeding pink skin, there is no smell from her coat, there is no medication anymore. She is 10 weeks on the raw food diet and these improvements alone are amazing plus she has already put on 3 kilos weight. Yes it is early days and no, I am not qualified to tell you to run out and do this, you will have to make up your own mind but after the long road we had of over a year of medications and treatments and tests I would do it all again in a heart beat.
Siobhan Owens |
