Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I wanted to know if you could give me advice. I've been having problems with my dog for the last few years. He get's hives all over his body that start bleeding and then start to puss. Ive tried 3 vets so far with no luck. They all had me give him antibiotics and medicated shampoo. The last vet gave him steriods as well as antibiotics and wanted me to keep him on a low dose of pred. It seemed to work but in every case it came back worse it seems. This time it came back while he was on pred so as of today I weaned him off of pred for good. I read a few days back on a website that I could try to give him a b-50 complex vitamin and use calamine lotion and a mild oatmeal shampoo. I used a baby shampoo called AVENO and diluted it with water. It seems to have been working. He's about 90% better. I had switched him to different foods before thinking it was a food allergy. Currently he's on California natural. I know raw diet is best but I would like to stick to kibble diet. California natural has just chicken, rice and vitamins and nutrients added. I never new you could give dogs people vitamins. My question is can I give him a good multivitamin that would have the b-50 complex in it and use the human shampoo AVVENO without harming him? Thank you in advance.

These are the vitamins I was considering. Please look over them and let me know what you think.

http://www.puritan.com/pages/file.asp?xs=67326B9E85D3404BA020BAD0671BBFA2&CID=67&CPID=491&PID=805&lbl=1#label

http://www.puritan.com/pages/file.asp?xs=67326B9E85D3404BA020BAD0671BBFA2&CID=67&CPID=196&PID=369&lbl=1#label

http://www.puritan.com/pages/file.asp?xs=67326B9E85D3404BA020BAD0671BBFA2&CID=67&CPID=1291&PID=197&lbl=1#label

Something I just learned about that works wonders is a mixture of 3 parts honey and 1 part warm water. Mix that up and put it on the wounds once a day. Brewer's yeast has B vitamins, I give that to my dogs every day.
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Kadee Sedtal
home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats- Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em, and the *adorable* winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

Thank you for the honey recipe. I will use that If the scabs come back but they seem to be going away for now. I started giving him vitamin b-50 and baby Aveno baths last Thursday. I know thats only a short time but something is working. I forgot to mention that I give my dog missing link. It says on the bag it contains vitamin b's but doesnt say how much. I guess I could try Brewer's yeast. Where would I get that in a vitamin shop? I kind of impressed with the vitamin b-50. I was mainly interested in if its ok to give him regular vitamins like vitamin b-50 or even a multivitamin. The reason is that dog vitamins I saw have very low doses of everything and are more expensive. Also Is it ok to use the baby Aveno? One thing I also forgot to mention is he has enlarged lymph nodes in his back legs. Sorry I didn't mention it but I was kind of in a rush to post the last messages. The right leg pretty much went away, its very small. The left side got smaller but still is enlarged. A little bigger than the size of a pea. They where bigger when I saw the vet but they went down after I gave him antibiotics and steroids;0( I really hate that stuff! I do feed him high quality food. I swicthed around when I first got him for a while thinking it was a food allergy. I started off with cheap commercial food but then went to quality stuff. I've used Innova, California Natural, Dr. fosters and Smith, Chicken Soup, Premium Edge, California Natural herring and sweet potatoe and now I'm sticking with California Natural chicken and rice. He seems to be gaining weight on it because he is kind of skinny. He's and american pitbull and should be over 100 lbs. but he's around 85 right now. A few weeks back you could see his ribs but now you cant. He still looks a little skinny. Ive been giving him missing link since August and I feed him as much as he will eat. He usually eats about 4 cups a day. I'm sorry for the long post but I have been having this problem since I got him 3 years ago, he was 1 year and a half. Now he's 4 and a half. I've seen 3 different vets. The first 2 vets use to charge me $200 every visit. The current vet is really good. She doesn't charge me for extra office visits, only the yearly checkup and she always gives me free medicine. She recommended that I find a holistic vet because I'm always arguing with her about antibiotics, steriods, rymadyl, and vaccinations. I think the whole problem is from over vaccination because when I got him he was fine. It seemed to start after I gave him Vaccinations. I gave him lyme shot 2 years ago but last year I didn't give it to him after reading about it on the web. This year the vet made a mistake and gave it to him;0( I also gave him the 5in1 shot too;0( next year he's only getting rabbies and I'm never giving him anything else;0) Ok well thanks for the help and maybe after reading this very long post you can come up with some more ideas for me.

The only shot an adult dog should get is rabies once every 3 years, nothing else. The lumps you were feeling on his back legs are most likely lymph nodes, enlarged due to the infections. When the skin clears up the lymph nodes should get much smaller. Human vitamins are fine for dogs. The dog vitamins have almost nothing in them, while human vitamins are much more potent. B-vitamins are water-soluble and are never toxic, whatever the potency. Your dog may have been suffering from some nutritional deficience, and now everything may be fine, but if he still has a problem, try taking him off all commercial food and giving him only one type of raw meat for at least a month, unless you see improvement sooner.

Today he's not doing as well as my last post. He has hives all over his body again. I'm guessing it's because I weaned him off the steriods. I was feeding him California Natural herring and sweet potatoes for a few months and he still had the same problems. Those ingredients he never had before. Wouldn't that mean he doesn't have food allergies? I really don't have any experience giving him raw food and from reading online I'm still not sure about it. Maybe you can point me in the right direction with a website that I can read. Did you mean just give him raw meat like hamberger meat and nothing else? I just wanted to make sure I didn't confuse you because I was asking about b-50 complex and mulitvitamnins. Is it ok to give my dog a mega multivitamin that has the b-50 complex in it? Thanks for your help and no more vaccinations except rabbies.

Yes, raw hamburger only. No commercial dog food.