kolarik1

I don't know how it's tested, I just watched the vet take skin samples, a couple had formaldehyde put on them and they were sent to a lab in Texas. I do know they are staining the samples to test for fungal infection. Our boy is only on antibiotics for right now. Our old vet's version of testing for food allergies was 'he has allergies, do you want to try the food we have?', which is when we switched to Eagle Pack Holistic (www.eaglepack.com). As for the homemade diet, he still had the symptoms, just his coat improved. When he was on the Exceed, we had to rub Vit E oil on his butt to ensure he didn't have bald thighs. Our old vet never recommended anthihistamines or anything like that, just our current vet whom we're seeing on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll know more then.

If anyone has littermates to my two, please contact me. I know it's a long shot as all of their littermates still show the racing owner as being their owners, but I thought I'd try. Popcorn (Jealousy is Ugly): sire: Oswald Cobblepot dam: J's Chizzler, whelped Sept. 19 2002 Zelda (Zelda Uhl): sire: Cayman Went dam: Madonna Uhl, whelped June 24, 2005 My email: kolarik1@msu.edu

He's very handsome...his antics remind me of our two. Pop loves to go tearing across our yard and huge chunks of sod will fly behind him...sometimes he's so close to us when he takes off that we get sprayed with dirt! When we first got Zelda, she would poop, then dig in all four paws and throw chunks of dirt everywhere...she stopped that after about a week (there was no snow on the ground at first, but now there is and she loves wher we throw snow at her as she thinks it's a game). Pop's only had accidents in the house when he was on steroids, so we've been lucky.

As long as there are no medical reason(s) for him doing this, the following was suggested to us by Pop's foster mom for Zelda (Zelda's bladder is farther back then normal, which the vet said could cause her to leak some urine while sleeping, but we haven't seen it yet so we haven't put her on this yet, but if she starts leaking we will try it). "Ask your vet about phenylpropaline. It tightens the sphincter muscles and helps with urine leaking. One of my dogs is on it as a maintenance drug and it works like a charm. It's not costly either."

You're right, the black part on his nose doesn't get affected on top, sometimes on the side it will get red, scab over, then the scab will fall off...once some sort of treatment is administered it heals and becomes black again. As for the biopsy, they said that the bacterial infection could be caused by something such as allergic dermatitis. On this second biopsy 7 samples were taken (1-anus, 1-genitals, 1-paw, 1-eye, 3-snout/mouth area). His old biopsy only 2 sections were examined. On his original biopsy it states "There was no evidence of autoimmune skin disease such as pemphigus or discoid lupus erythematosus in the sections examined. The lesion is morphologically consistent with chronic pyoderma probably induced by chronic irritation by bacterial infection with a possible underlying hypersensitivity reaction to an unknown allergen. Flea, mite, food, inhaled & contact allergens are potential causes.'

What symptoms did your hound have? Did a biopsy come back as allergic dermatitis for you like it has for our boy? I had read about the discoid lupus, but our vet is insisting that it is not hormonal, but will do a thyroid panel anyway. Is there any other tests that would rule lupus out? Our vet at first mentioned lupus, but wanted to wait on the biopsy results...I really don't want to treat him for the wrong thing, which is why I'm trying to get other owner's ideas so I can bombard our vet. Thanks.

We haven't done any allergy testing or TBD testing. We did blood panels last year and at that time, his HCT/PCV, HGB and RBC seemed to be either at the low end of normal to low (the tests were done a couple of different times, twice in april, once in july). His T4 was 1.04 both times. Yes, we use stainless steel dishes. This is the worst it's ever been on his feet...if you look at the picture of Pop & Zelda that I posted in 'cute things...' under 'our 2 babies' he just had infections in his paws which we were treating...the picture was taken just about 2 - 3 weeks before the face pictures, which shows how quick it breaks out. Our new vet doesn't think it's food allergies as according to her 1)he would break out within 2 weeks of new food, yet he was symptom free for 6 months on Eagle Pack, which is what his foster mom fed him & 2)food allergies supposedly aren't responsive to steroids. Plus, someone from our group said that her vet claimed her dog had allergies for quite a few years and he went to an allergist, who eventually ran out of options...she asked her vet for another thyroid panel and her dog was borderline normal, so they started him on thyroid meds and within 2 months all his symptoms were gone. I have contacted the vets at Ohio State University from the Greyhound Project and faxed them down all the results we have so far and will try to get the rest on Tue when we go in for his thyroid panel.

Ok, we've had Pop for just over 2 years. During that time, we have accumulated 17 pages of notes/comments and results from our vet due to the various symptoms Pop has had. He started with a ear (yeast) infection within a month of getting him. He had a cough in the past, with clear fluid coughed up a couple of times...this went away and was gone for quite awhile until recently when I heard the cough, but I haven't heard it since. He also has been getting infections in his paws, on his anus and genitals and now he has severe bacterial infections on his face (eyes/snout). The symptoms have always cleared up with steroids. When we first got him, we were feeding him Exceed from Sam's Club, but he hated it, so last January we started making a homemade vegetarian diet out of Dr. Pitcairn's book; he loved it but it was hard to make enough to last even a week as he's such a large dog. Then in July 2007 we switched him to Eagle Pack Holistic and he was symptom free until around Thanksgiving, beginning of December. We had a biopsy done last July (2007) and it came back as allergies. We recently switched vets when we adopted Zelda and our new vet is much more in to getting to the bottom of the problem. We just did another biopsy about 2 weeks ago and it came back as the most severe, worst bacterial infection the lab has ever seen possibly caused by allergic dermatitis. They are doing staining right now on the samples as there might be a fungal infection/problem which could be the underlying problem. So for now, our vet said he needs 12-16 weeks of antibiotics (penicillin/clavamox won't work on this infection, he's on cephalexin) and a lifetime of antihistamines with occasional prednisone shots. We are going in Tuesday morning for a Thyroid panel (which I pushed for). I've included pictures of his face from about 2 weeks ago just to show what his face looks like. The antibiotics seem to be drying up the infected areas...we also started giving him acidophilus pills once a day to help replace the lost bacteria from his digestive tract and a fish oil pill each day to improve his coat (his coat looked greyt and his hair grew back on his butt when we did the homemade diet and when he was on Eagle Pack until his symptoms reappeared, now it's kind of dull). So does this sound like allergies to everyone else?

We use muzzles in the car as Zelda likes to stand at first and has stepped on Pop a couple of times...he's yelped at her but nothing more (did I mention that he really loves having a sister and they get along pretty darn well, but I still don't trust them without muzzles in the car). Plus, even when Pop was an only grey, we used a muzzle as he thought there was tons of yummy stuff outside (rabbit poop), so he has one of those white muzzles from NGA where they can't eat anything really with them on (in addition to the muzzle he came with when we adopted him). We're going to get Zelda one of those muzzles as well as she also thinks that there's yummy stuff in the yard, but it looks like dog poop on her muzzle...we muzzle both when they go outside as we have been told about the possibility of nips when playing...I'm glad someone posted about this just to drive the fact home what can happen, even if the greys have muzzles on but manage to slip them off.