Skin Problems

The Healthy Bark

Skin problems are one of the most common issues pet owners face. My favorite line is when they say he just smells funny. My response-Does he smell like "Fritos"? So many times they laugh and say Yes now that you mention it.

So what makes a dog smell like that, or worse? There are many things that can make your dog smell. The biggest problem is the food and how the body is processing it. I am going to try and give you a visual to think about that will help explain why your pet smells. Usually when you think of skin problems you think of allergies, either food or environmental. Well that is half the answer, so let us dig into this and try and connect the dots.

First it is not natural for your dog to smell unless they just went out and rolled in something stinky, and yes dogs do enjoy a good roll in the smelliest thing they can find. The skin is an organ, in fact it is the biggest organ. By the time you see skin issues there are numerous other things going on in the body.

• Lack of bacteria balance
• Poor digestion
• Over processed food
• Kidney and Liver stressed
• Intolerance to foods
• Environmental issues/Chemicals
• Imbalance in the body
• Suppressed immune system

So here we have a dog that smells, most likely licks his paws, scratches his ears, and scratches his body, licks his body, and has sores. Constant itching, scratching, and biting, sound like your dog?

Dogs sweat from their mouths through panting and their feet, so we are going to look at the chain of events that makes your dog smell and have skin issues.

Diet-Bad Bacteria over growth in the body, and cross contamination.

Your pet licks his feet, which is now covered in bad bacteria from his saliva, or he scratches his ears which have yeast in them (again bad bacteria), now he scratches his skin, this now puts cuts into the layers and deposits the bad bacteria, in turn he gets a skin infection, that he now licks and ingest more bad bacteria, in the mean time his paws are now covered in yeast from scratching his ears and licking his feet. You take him to the vet to be given antibiotics and steroids, now you have suppressed his immune system, and killed what little good bacteria he had. Now the cycles continues, he gets dose after dose and each time he comes off these it comes back but worse.

You have a few issues and each needs to be addressed. So where do you start? Well there are a few places and things you need to do to get this under control. I will try and give you a starting point and directions you can go to, but it will not happen overnight.

1. Diet-Feed a proper diet
2. Digestion-Get a balance of good bacteria to help boost his immune
3.  Boost the immune with supplements
4.  Fast-Put him on a week of Raw Goats milk or Raw Kefir by Answers to let his body rest-The milk fast will help cleanse the body and let it heal with less stress on the digestive tract as it digest in 20 minutes. (Never fast a cat)
5. Bathe him in a mild shampoo with healing herbs-Can also do a Raw Milk Bath-Just wet dog, and pour the milk on him, let sit for 15 minutes and rinse.
6. Rinse with a mix 50% Apple Cider Vinegar and 50% Water-Never getting in face or eyes
7. Dip feet in the Vinegar mix and pat dry daily-Rub on Organic Coconut Oil
8. Use an ear cleaner that is gentle, natural, and healing
9. Detox with Homeopathy Remedies
10. Support the kidneys and liver to help cleanse the body
11. Cleanse sores with Apple Cider mixture or with Raw Milk-Use Organic Coconut oil on them

Read over the Digestion and Immune System blog I posted, as it has some links to products that work. If doing the Fast with the Raw milks skip the Digest-All Plus as that would be over kill.
This is not an overnight process, it took months to get this bad and if given steroids and antibiotics you will have to boost the body back up. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it does get better.

Here are some products that I have used many times to help pets and their owners get through this. If you have any questions please use the "Contact Form" and I will be more than glad to talk to you.