Dog scratching off his hair

[speachy]

My 18mth old dog who I have had for 3 mths is scratching off his hair on his neck so bad he is breaking his skin and now has a large bald patch. I took him to the vet 3 weeks ago who said it may be an allergy and gave him a course of steroids. If anything it has gotten worse. I have put a doggy jumper on him now to try and prevent him doing more damage and I will of course be bringing him back to the vet. Have any of you come across this with your dogs and if so what caused it and how best did you treat it?

Is he a U.K. dog? I mean, if he has come from Greece, Cyprus or somewhere else with sandfly, it could be Leishmania and he should be tested?

He does need tests from the vet. Malaseb shampoo will help ease the itch...the vet will give you that. He could also be allergic to his food. Try a sensitive food instead. I know dry food made from chicken is bad for mine, so hers is a lamb based kibble.

He is an Irish dog😊. Would an allergy to his food cause him to only scratch one place on his body?

We were given a drug called Apoquel when we were trying to work out the scratching being done by my rescue terrier X. He was allergic to fleas, which we knew - but also reacted to Advocate - the treatment me vet had put him in when we got him. It took about 6 months for me to work out the reaction to Advocate - I just wasn't looking for it, was concentrating on food allergies.

Putting him on Advantage solved the problem. He's now on Simparica trio (flea and wormer) with no reaction.

The Apoquel gave us a bit of breathing space. We used it to stabilise and get his fur back to normal, then took him off it and did an elimination diet to see what was causing it. As I say, ironically it was the flea treatment itself, not diet.

Thanks all, hopefully we will get to the bottom on it too.

My girl had a bad skin condition when we got her but scratched mainly in a couple of places. She’s on Apoquel now too...steroids were making her so sick, so the food and Apoquel keep her skin healthy.

Is his collar causing issues? Take it he doesn’t have a flea or anything?
Back to the vet! hope he feels better soon.

Give him some piriton in the mean time

Google his weight and add piriton dosage and it will tell you how much he needs

I had an Irish dog and he was allergic to bloody everything. Would scratch and chew himself raw

Ended up doing an elimination diet to see if it helped and it did

In the end he was allergic to:-
Rice
Chicken
Wheat
Beef
Grass

I had to give him fish4dogs food as it was potato and fish and not a whole lot else

Re. Piriton. It's an antihistamine so will only work if the itching is being caused by a histamine reaction. If you try it and it has no effect then at least you will know something. It had no effect on my boys itching, which is why we ended up on Apoquel.

So to update in case anyone is interested vet diagnosed a fungal infection , he pecribed antibiotics and a fungal cream. I have to bring my dog back to the vets this in two weeks time , hopefully we will see an improvement in the two weeks. Thanks all.

Mange is the other possibility - easily treated with vet strength flea treatment.