Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Something you might not have known.
Chapter 2: What skincare routine is essential for preventing itchy skin in dogs?
It is important for your dog to have a good skin care routine to prevent itchy skin conditions. So what's the best way to go about it? Lucy Jerram joins me in studio to tell me more. Morning, Lucy.
Hi, David.
Thanks a million for coming in. If you have any questions for Lucy, you can WhatsApp us on 0870 32 32 32. Text 51551 or email todaydmc at rte.ie. Now, I can imagine non-dog owners out there or non-pet owners out there raising their eyes to heaven at the idea of a dog having a skincare routine. But it is a real thing.
It is a real thing. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess it maybe doesn't look like our skincare routine might, but it's not that far from it either. So we start with worrying about parasites, so fleas and ticks. And that's the bit that looks less like our skincare routine. But if we end up with... Speak for yourself. Well...
But if we end up with a dog or any kind of pet that we know has issues, then we look at things like omega-3 oil supplementation, zinc supplementation, good washing techniques.
How often do you need to wash a dog?
It varies very much on the dog. For dogs that love going in the river or the sea or wherever, we would be saying realistically they need a wash every time they get out, particularly of rivers and less flowing water, so lakes and that kind of thing. If you are having to wash that regularly, then we'd look at products that are a bit less...
harsh on the skin so kind of a milder shampoo a more sensitive shampoo again this potentially sounds a bit like thinking about your own skin care if you know you have sensitive skin you might might think about it accordingly so yeah okay so to control the fleas and the ticks there are options out there Yeah, absolutely.
So this is probably, I would say, probably 90% of our consults in a day, we will discuss parasite control, even if it's not the reason that the dog is in the room. It's really important, particularly dogs that live with cats, they are really prone to fleas. only about 5% to 10% of fleas actually live on the dog. So the rest will live in the environment.
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Chapter 3: How do fleas and ticks impact a dog's skin health?
So there still are spot ons, but they work in different ways. There's tablets. There are still collars, again, working different ways. And there's now even a year long injection system. So one of the issues we have with things like the tablets is you have to remember to give it every three months.
So you're putting a reminder in your phone or you're hoping that someone tells you that it needs to be done. If you're just having to do something once a year, you can kind of tie it in with your annual vaccination. Potentially just makes life a bit easier there.
But I mean, you're introducing chemicals into the body of the animal, which some people aren't keen on, particularly the spot on, I think.
Yeah. So the spot on products, particularly the older products, they were designed to just sit on the skin and they were derived from pesticides. So that's where they came from. So definitely chemicals kind of on the skin. Nowadays, we have developed kind of more new actives that have less effect on the environment. They absorb into the skin better.
And even when they're excreted, they're excreted in lower amounts. So particularly things like the injection and some of the tablets, they have much lower levels. They're excreted in the poop. So as long as we practice good neighborhoodly practices, Yes, well, we should be doing that anyway. Yeah, absolutely.
We're not contaminating the environment as much, but certainly those older spot-ons that you can get over the counter, you put them on, if the dog goes in the river, it washes off, and we have some big concerns there about what that might be doing to the environment. So we'd obviously advocate getting those from your vet. At Highfield, we have a pet plan, so owners...
pay a subscription and that covers their parasite care.
Okay, so that's fleas and ticks. Are there other types of parasites that dogs can be prone to?
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Chapter 4: How often should you wash your dog for optimal skin care?
There are. They're less common. Generally less common or they're kind of less likely to cause problems. But at certain times of year, mites in particular can cause issues. So running through long grass, they might pick up mites. Demodex actually lives in a lot of people's eyebrows, but it can affect dogs as well. And if you have an allergy to demodex, then there might be an issue there.
Yeah. Now, speaking of allergies, dogs can suffer from allergies just like humans can.
Yeah. So they can be allergic to the fleas that they're infected with, but they can also be allergic to food, different food proteins generally. So beef or chicken might be more common there or environmental allergens as well. So food allergens, we look at doing a food trial and that involves giving them a hypoallergenic diet. It's called a hydrolyzed protein.
It's not particularly tasty, so it's quite hard to get your dog to stick to it. And they need to be on that for up to eight weeks to determine whether it is a food allergy.
And that and only that?
Only that. So no scavenging, no treats. So... Having said that, if you have lived with an itchy dog for any kind of time, you're invested in helping fix that problem. So owners will go for it. And it is any kind of allergy. They are lifelong conditions we're managing. We're not actually ever going to cure them potentially. So whatever we can do to keep them more comfortable.
So that's diet, but there's environmental allergens as well.
Exactly. And it's really hard to remove any kind of environmental allergen from your dog. I was talking to a colleague on the weekend and she was saying they managed to diagnose an ash allergy And the owner had gone and they'd cut down the ash trees in their garden and the dog's allergy hadn't gone any better because, of course, the neighbour had an ash tree still.
So we look at... For those, we look at... Historically, we gave them antihistamines and steroids, things that we would know ourselves, but they come with quite a lot of side effects. So more recently, newer products have been...
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Chapter 5: What are the best products for controlling fleas and ticks?
So I guess we would see it most commonly in dogs. But we would see cats in particular can be allergic to the fleas that they might carry. But even things like rabbits and guinea pigs can have issues.
So just keep an eye on us. OK, we've a load of questions in. I think only one of them is about... It's about itchy dogs, but anyway. OK, I have a nine-year-old cocker spaniel. The poor fella is driven demented with itchy ears. The only relief he gets is short course of oral steroids. We have had it swabbed, which showed a yeast infection.
We keep them as clean as we can, but they're very tender to touch. Can you advise, please, poor dog?
That sounds painful. And the ears, we actually didn't touch them on the ears there, but ears are an extension of the skin. So this might actually suggest that this dog potentially has an allergy elsewhere and it's just demonstrating itself in the ears. Totally, steroids is a reasonable first stage for something like that.
But when you're getting kind of repeat problems... You can't be on steroids all the time. Yeah, exactly. And the yeast can be an overgrowth of... I have something going on underneath. So I'd be saying I'd be going back to the vet, unfortunately, but asking maybe for further testing or considering something like one of these allergy medications and seeing if that might help with the ears.
OK, next one. My cat, not about itching, my cat is seven years old and we moved house about a year ago, but he keeps spraying on my son's clothes if they're on the floor. We have a lot of stray cats outside and I've tried to plug in
pheromones but nothing is changing this habit that's a tricky one behavior is um is really challenging i'd say if the cat is still in tyre then potentially um getting him spayed would would help with with that um sometimes it just reduces the the hormone and the urges they're in um and yeah potentially just getting the sun to be a bit tidier with the clearing up the clothes might be the answer.
Absolutely. If you know what the cat's going to do to your clothes, it might encourage you to tidy them up. I have a 13-year-old retriever, Collie, and I can't stop her peeing at night. She's not incontinent, but pees on the floor every night. That's from Eamon.
We've got all the toilet problems this morning. 13 is not young. So whilst we may think she's not incontinent, she may be struggling a little bit with holding it at certain times. We'd also in older pets start looking at other issues such as kidneys or potentially diabetes coming into play. So
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