ALLERGIES IN DOGS

Does your pet scratch? Does your lick his or her feet? Does your pet scratch at their ears?
Allergies are very common in our pets; they can be allergic to environmental allergens, food,
and fleas, amongst other things. Your pet might only scratch at one ear and that might be the
only symptom that they manifest.
Allergies begin, generally, but not always, as early as 1-2 years of age. The symptoms might be
seasonal or year-round depending on the offending allergen.
When you and I suffer from allergies, our offending allergens are often inhaled, and the
“reaction” or symptom is generally sneezing, runny eyes, coughing, etc. However, in the dog,
the offending allergen is absorbed through the skin and the “reaction” is generally cutaneous,
but can result in coughing, sneezing, and runny eyes as well. As mentioned above, some dogs
only have ear inflammation (infection, hypersecretion of wax or cerumen, ear flap inflammation)
or they may lick their feet. But, by and large, constant scratching is the most common clinical
complaint. Trauma to the skin, via scratching (pruritus), can and does lead to secondary skin
infection.
So what do we do about allergies (discussion confined to environmental allergies). Historically,
veterinarians only had a few medications in the cabinet – antihistamines and steroids. Luckily
those days are gone and I do mean luckily. Steroids were very effective but the side effects,
both short and long-term were terrible.
Now we are blessed to have two new drugs in our cabinets: Apoquel and Cytopoint. Both of
these medications are targeted therapies. Apoquel inhibits a single enzyme in the skin that
stops the cascade of biochemical and molecular events that start the allergy process. Apoquel
is given orally, daily, and is very effective in most cases with very few observed side effects
Cytopoint is an injection given monthly to every six weeks; Cytopoint is a monoclonal antibody
that neutralizes the inflammatory proteins (cytokines) that, again, initiate the allergy cascade. It
is also very effective with no real side effects.
Lastly, we have allergy testing and immunotherapy. We can draw blood from your pet and
determine what your pet is allergic to and then create a “kit” of those allergens; the
immunotherapy is available as an injection but currently we recommend the sublingual drops.
The sublingual drops have reported to be more effective and “work” more rapidly than the
injection system. And, we can avoid giving injections to our pets.
We, thankfully, have come a long way in improving our pet's lives and reshaping how we
approach the scratchy and itchy dog.
We have come a very long way in improving the lives of our pets, including the chronic
scratching, licking, head-shaking pet. And, the medications are now very effective and have few
side effects.
If you feel your pet has allergies, call us for a consultation/examination