Photo of my Wolfie was taken on Sunday walk through the forest. He is only 5 months old, so he gets tired very quickly.
He is a very nice puppy. The cutest thing - he has chosen me as his favourite person from his pack.
Wolfie isn't lucky with health - he has some terrible skin allergies (his belly and legs are in bad rashes). Summary of our 3 months together: 12 visits at the vet, 3x 10 days of antibiotics, 1 x steroids, now daily antihistamines.
We hope it is only food allergy, they are the easiest to handle.
Vet said that the tests for allergy are reliable only when dogs are at 8-12 months old... so we can not test him until now.
We are now buying one of the most expensive foods available:
http://www.petcurean.com/for-dogs/now-fresh/grain-free-puppy
(only Canadian food is good enough for Mr. Wolfie, he refused English, German and Swiss dog food :)
He is already a bit better. But it was so sad few weeks ago, he had so many side effects from antibiotics that he looked so ill as our previous dog, few months before passing away.
I love Wolfie. But I am really sure that he is the last dog of my life. Too many things can go wrong, too many worries...
Ooh poor Wolfie. That photo is adorable - he looks completely ... well ... knackered!
ReplyDeleteI love him!
ReplyDeletePoor Wolfie! But, he obviously knows good food. ;)
ReplyDeleteWolfie is a beauty!! So sorry he has allergy problems but he will outgrow them with good care. GSDs are very, very high maintenance dogs both training and healthwise. Each and single one of them, based on my own experience and my numerous friends'. There is a very good GSD forum you may want to join http://germanshepherdhome.net/forum/ so you can get expert advise from long term GSD owners as well as breeders. This is a smaller forum, people are very helpful and supportive and friendly, you will like them! I respect vets a lot but they do have very limited knowledge of particular breeds and especially nutrition related issues that apply to GSDs.
ReplyDeleteI also had to move through many foods to figure out the protein my dog is allergic to. It turned out to be chicken and beef :( I feed half raw and half kibble (Acana), lamb protein. Does Wolfie swim a lot? If he does you'd want to make sure his coat is rinsed with clean water and thoroughly dried each time after swimming as moisture under his undercoat may contribute to skin irritation. If he was put on abx it means that he had secondary infection and it is important to figure out the source in order to prevent another bout. Be careful with steroids, they do make dogs (and people) very sick if used long term.
GSDs require so much care but they give back ten times more, the best dogs ever. Hugs to both of you!
dear Obie, thank you so much for your comments. I already shared the GSD forum with my husband, he says thank you too.
DeleteWolfie swam only once, in really clean lake, but the skin condition was much worse after the swimming, so we did not repeat it.
So far we figured he is alergic to wheat... Last Sunday on an excursion he stole my bread (I was making sandwich) and few hours later he was completely in rashes. But he is alergic also to something else, we are still figuring out.
You are welcome! Wheat is an allergen for sure and it's good that you now know that Wolfie has to stay away from it. Swimming is very good for growing pups but the moisture can contribute to infection, usually staph. Some of my experience with abx that are often prescribed for staph - cephalexin can be very hard for dog to handle and rips their GI system apart, and if you use Baytril (or other quinolones) you may need to use it for 6-8 weeks to be effective so don't stop if there is no immediate improvement.
DeleteIt may take time for your pup to strengthen his immune system but he will get better. For now, I would keep on singling out the allergens and also would try not to over-vaccinate and do the absolutely required vaccines separately with some time in between. Hope your pupster feels better soon!
omg :))) Wolfie is so cute, Klara !
ReplyDeleteI also had a dog with big alergic problems from this age on (Rhodesian Ridgback)...we started an elimination diet at the age of 7 month - what is very early but we had to find out what he was able to eat. In the end result it was only horse and some green vegetables. But then we knew and things went better. He couldn´t eat any kind of industrial dog food also - because of additives. So we bought the meat and the vegetables and cooked it on our own. We cooked it, because he couldnt eat raw meat also. Many problems in the beginning - but after we found out things got really really much better !
Good luck and a big hugh to Wolfie (and you ;) )
Isa
Oh, sorry about that, I had no idea that dogs could have rashes, and as a chronically allergic person I can certainly relate to that (even though well being allergic I could never have a dog). My (human but who knows maybe it works for dogs as well) big help against rashes (apart from pharmacy bought cortisone) is olive oil, it nicely coats the skin buts lets it breeze. Good luck!
ReplyDelete