Another allergic reaction

[snowbunny]

It happened again this morning, gagh! Luckily, J noticed her acting odd and called me to take a look. She was starting to get very slight swelling around her eyes, and had red spots appearing on tummy and ears, so I just chucked the tablets down her. It progressed over the next few minutes but happily the drugs kicked in quickly so she was nowhere near as swollen as the other day.

This didn’t start until a couple of hours after the walk, so I can only think that she got some of “it” on her coat and either licking set it off, or else it worked its way through to her skin.
We’re going to start showering her legs off after every walk.

It’s weird because Willow and Shadow must travel ten times the distance she does, yet it’s her getting affected!

 

[Charlie]

Curious to know what it could be. Good that J noticed so a bad reaction was prevented. I suppose it's the same for dogs as humans, we aren't allergic to something that a sibling might be. Showering is a good idea. Hope Squidge is okay. x

 

[Oberon]

Oh dear, poor Squidge At least you have some meds that help....

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

Again, thank goodness you are a walking pharmacy. Poor Squidge.

 

[SwampDonkey]

Poor little squidge

 

[kateincornwall]

Poor lamb xx

 

[Loraseal]

Poor Squidge x

 

[edzbird]

Did you walk in the same place?

 

[snowbunny]

Did you walk in the same place?

All walks start at our gate, but this was a different route to the last time she puffed up.

 

[Lisa]

Weird and very frustrating. Thank goodness you have the meds!

 

[Sally]

Poor pup, you must be on tenterhooks everytime she goes out.

I appreciate we have a lot less doggy health experience than you all, but due to how severe her reaction is would it be worth her having an allergy test? When Cooper started his issues we were told the most common allergies were environmental and our vet recommended a test as her own dogs had one and it showed up specific grass allergies.
In our case as he hates making life simple he tested negative to everything, but it helped ruling things out.
I'm sure there are a number of different ones, I can only comment on the one our vet used which was the Artuvetrin test, from a company based in The Netherlands and we did contact them directly with some questions and they were very good at responding and on their website they mention different tests depending on where you live due to the differing pollens/grasses dogs have exposure to.
For Pet Parents - Nextmune - these are info pages our vet gave us to look at which may/may not be of interest (delete as appropriate).
Hope she is feeling better soon.

 

[snowbunny]

Thank you, Sally! The issue with allergy tests, as I understand them, is that you need to test against something. So you could test against grass pollen, or tree pollen, for example, but that wouldn't pick it up if it were caused by an insect sting. It's obviously something very specific and not everywhere because it's only happening on occasion, and has only happened at this time of year. Maybe someone with greater understanding of these things could correct me if that's not accurate, though.

My hypothesis is that it's caterpillars, potentially the pine processionary, which is a bloody awful beast whose hairs can kill dogs. I've not seen any nests this year - or rather, we destroyed the few we saw earlier in the year - but it would tie up with the type of reaction. But, the thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Squidge very rarely goes off exploring on walks - we're always laughing at her because she'll trot-trot-trot-stop to watch what W&S are doing, but rarely leaves the path. And Willow does have the same allergic reaction to Luna, so why isn't she being affected when she covers so much more ground? It's just weird!

The other thing is, I'm not sure what to do in any event. If is is the caterpillars, what then? We live surrounded by pine forests. Do we just not walk the dogs for the next couple of months? Not let them outside in case the caterpillars have crossed our garden, shedding hairs as they go? I dunno.

So for now, we're sticking to walks on the "roads" (no tarmac, just dirt tracks) that we have around us, and staying out of the woods, even though the tracks are still lined on both sides with pine forest to a large extent. And we'll wash their feet and legs after every walk so that if they pick up hairs on their feet, they won't get ingested if they lick them. And, of course, keep the medicine cabinet stocked just in case! If the reactions get any worse, I'll look at getting an epipen in case of anaphylaxis.

It's just a bit "ergh"!

 

[Natalie]

Are you normally still in Andorra in late Feb / early March, @snowbunny , in 'normal' years?

 

[snowbunny]

Are you normally still in Andorra in late Feb / early March, @snowbunny , in 'normal' years?

Yes, the ski season ends mid April normally, and we decamp to Spain after that. Two years ago we popped to the farm for a weekend in February to find we had been broken into, so I stayed put through March, and that's when the girls had their first experiences of this reaction.