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Diagnosing the Itchiness of Your Dog

When your dog scratches all the time and wherever you go, you will eventually feel pity for him or her. It is really awful to see your pet scratch and itch because it will eventually give him lesions and make him lose fur.

If you want to let your dog look like a hairless alien it may be fine to leave it all alone. But it would still be inhumane, so the best thing to do is go a veterinarian and have it diagnosed. Here are the following diagnostic procedures that are done to figure out why the pet is so itchy.

• There will be a thorough background check to be done on your dog. Consider this like an initial interview of sorts. This interview will help the veterinarian have more of an idea on a very broad scope.

Usual things to be asked is the breed of the dog, symptoms, age, and response to previous medications are important for the veterinarian to know. He will then base further diagnosis from this information.

• Your dog will also be given a thorough physical examination that includes examination of the skin, footpads, ears and claws. Itching on the skin can be directly observed, so what the veterinarian sees is already valuable for giving treatments.

What the veterinarian will look for is primary lesions that are caused by the disease and secondary lesions that are caused by the pet’s response. A critical part of the diagnosis is the distribution of the lesions because your dog will scratch in the areas where the disease is present.

• To look for fleas, parasites, mites or other dirt that may have caused the itching, a flea comb is used.

• To diagnose skin parasites, skin scraping is done on your dog. The skin is removed by a scalpel and then placed under a microscope to be able to be observed if mange sites or other parasites are present.

• Ringworms will cause your dog to scratch and can mimic other skin diseases. To be able to see if your pet is infected by ringworms, a piece of hair is plucked from the area where a lesion is present. It will then be placed on a machine that can grow it and be incubated for 10 days to 4 weeks for observation.

• Other tests such as blood tests or allergy test may be done. Blood tests are done to see if any disease on other organs may have caused the itching disease. While allergy tests is done to see if the itching is caused by certain elements or food in which your dog becomes itchy.

These diagnostic procedures will help figure out why your dog is itching so bad. Preventing the disease to spread further will help both of you, as you might eventually catch the disease form your pet as well if you’re as hairy as your pet.