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We have an 18 month of Blue English Staffordshire Terrier female dog – Matilda – currently desexed (but we are not breeding her)
From day 1 we only fed her home made food. Grass-fed, organic beef including liver & kidney, kangaroo meat, organic cold pressed coconut oil, organic garlic, organic raw egg yolks, etc. Her diet was perfect - and all raw. Unfortunately at about 4months old she started having ear troubles, and we battled with yeasty, gunky, infections for months. Itchy feet also an issue, on and off - varying degrees of infection at different times. No chemicals in the house, bare minimal vaccine schedule given to her. The most natural puppy around! Lots of raw meaty bones, and diatamaceous earth in food incase of fleas but she never had them.
We tried different ear flushes (ACV, rubbing alcohol, aloe vera) and (h202 3%) and (Mix of Acetic Acid & Boric Acid). Sometimes ears were better than other times.
We played around with diet and went on first elmination diet: all the same food but slow cooked instead of raw (holistic vet said she was a 'hot, damp' dog and this was coughing infections in ears and feet. Not much difference. Then a proper elimination of boiled white rice and cottage cheese. Some difference, varying results, never stopped though.
She was given different chinese herbs along our time at the first Holistic vet - the issue progressed worse with unbearable rubbing ears on floor / head shaking that she ended up having an operation - Video otoscopy with deep ear flush – Myringotomy (incision to ear drum). Aural hematoma drained and skin on ear flap sutured to prevent refilling. It was very sad. She was put on steroids (internal and topical) and antibiotics (internal and external) - not what we wanted but we had run out of time, the situation had got so out of hand and there was no other options.
Over the next few months the situation was all under control because of conventional drugs. This has bought us some time. She is now off these and we have time again to look at natural therapies.
Her current elimination diet is Horse meat and sweet potato. She has been on this for 6 months since that operation. In the past we sent off for saliva tests done in the USA by Dr Jean Dodd for food allergies a panel of 20 foods were taken and only three things showed up as a moderate reaction - these were soy, turkey & millet <-- we have never fed her any of these. This was at 8 months old, so we are having them re-done now to see if this has changed - also because some extra foods have been added to the panel. But hard to know if food is the reason.
The vets believe she has a combination of food & environmental allergies. She is currently seeing a different holistic vet who practices NAET - a natural allergy elimination technique. She has not improved so far, although her ears are still looking good, but as Spring approaches in Australia we are worried they will revert back like they did that time last year (and the only reason they cleared up is because of conventional medicine - so they *will* come back)
Current elimination diet: horse meat, sweet potato, brocolli. What we add to her food: Probiotic powder by Protexin, chinese herbs (Liu Jun Zi Wan, Si Miao San, Five Mushrooms) and we also give her a combination of flower essences. <-- this is current treatment from new holistic vet. She has holistic vets baffled - no one understands whats wrong with her. Conventional vets just want to keep her on antibiotics, antihistimines, steroids.
She is only 11kg, very small and muscular, so happy and fit and loves life - her issues do not affect her spirit! But we are so concerned, we do everything natural and still have so much problems - right now the biggest issue is that she incessintly licks/chews her paws all the time.
Tiny from birth (she was born last in the litter - a day later than the others, that is why she is so tiny! ) She is now 18 months old and we are about to come into "allergy season". I read everything Ted writes on here. Because her food is very wet and it's winter, she does not drink much water. I have been putting ? teaspoon of baking soda per half litre of water in her bowls around the house for the last week, but she barely drinks water. Could I put the baking soda in her wet food instead? She will drink raw organic coconut water, could I put the baking soda in that? I have started adding a teaspoon of raw organic apple cider vinegar to her food twice a day for the last week – I am just starting to look into the alkalizing issue as per Teds advice.
We stopped giving our dog coconut oil since the elimination diet. I would like to reintroduce but our holistic vet doing NAET has identified this as one of the things she disagrees with. We would like to add fish oil / flaxseed oil to her food, but on the saliva IGA allergy testing panel they tested for Salmon and she came back 'Weak Reaction' so we werent sure if we should. I agree she needs fats in her diet though. She used to have them, we would regularly give her raw sardines and coconut oil.
I have not tried the borax/peroxide remedy - as I always read this in relation to mange - should we be putting this on her paws? or washing her with this? To be honest we dont really wash her with anything, she enjoys the beach, she is short haired and never smells, we give her an occasional bath with filtered water and use a bit of diluted Dr Bronners Soap.. so this is something we can work on.
All feedback welcome, thanks in advance for your time!
