1) No
2) Yes
3) Moist, covered, warm, lots of food, perfect incubation environment.

5 months would be young but not unheard of to develope a food allergy. It could also be an inhalant(sp?) type allergy. They pretty much express themselves in the same ways, itching, chewing and scratching. If an individual is very sensitive to fleas then one bite would be enough to keep them scratching for 10 days to 2 weeks, so no you may not actually see signs of fleas on the pet. If the hot spot is in an area that does stay wet from playing/drooling then I would suspect that's your root cause.

Lisa

My dog developed hot spots out of the blue. The best way to treat them is aggressively - they can spread like wild fire. Just my 2 cents - switch your dog to a premium dog food without all the wheat and corn.

Thanks for the info. The vet did give Jasper a cortisone injection and he is on oral pred and Keflex. Also, we are trying to keep his fur as dry as we can. We keep a towel out for him so we can dry him off after play sessions with big brother and we started a bed time brushing session. We also started him on flea medication, too, in case that was the cause. We have a follow up appt with the vet tomorrow, and I am going to make sure I discuss all the possible causes / treatments with her. I can tell he's already feeling better from the treatment. He's running around like superman the past day or so. Hopefully we can get these spots cleared up and keep them away. Wish me luck.

Saying that the animal is too young to develop allergies breaks absolutely with anything inmunology says.

With allergies its simple:

1.- The animal is allergic: it´s born allergic, to what ? who knows until the allergen finds it´s way and the animal manifests the allergy. ( Imediate response )

2.- The animal is not allergic ( No response )

3.- The animal becomes allergic with time: the animal develops the allergy through prolonged exposition to the allergen. ( Mediate respose )

And the mechanisms between one and the other are different, while the imediate response is caused by histamine, the mediate response is caused by antibodies.

Although I was not sure, I had a feeling that 5 months was not too young for allergies, especially when the vet said they don't get allergies until 1 year. Our lab is only 8 months old and he had 2 severe allergic reactions when he was probably 6-6.5 months old. But I was not sure if maybe his reactions were different since he had facial and body swelling and hives, and our saint has hot spots. And maybe it is from the wet fur, I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I definitely need to try and get to the bottom of this so I can try and prevent a reoccurance.

The "target organ" of anaphylactic onset in dogs is the skin ( facial and body swelling and hives ), in humans the target organ is the respiratory system ( reason why the throat "closes" and you can´t breath when people are suffering from anaphylactic reaction ).

Raul, you give very informative answers!

Onyxdaly, please don't overlook Mazer's note on food. You obviously love your puppy, and will do best by providing him with a high quality food where meat is the first ingredient on the label. If you are concerned about potential allergies do get him onto a premium food without the grains and corn. I have no statistics, but so many people with dogs who have allergies and skin poblems are contributing to the problem with poor diet. Diet, grooming and exercise are key to a happy healthy dog, and you'll save the worry and the vet costs! I just can't emphasize this enough.

Yes, I love all my doggies very much. I wanted them to be on good dog food, which was why we switched to the purina 1. An earlier thread about dog foods had a link about how to read an ingredient list on dog foods and what to look for and avoid. I realized that the puppy chow was mostly corn, and I read some other food labels (ingredients) and saw that purina 1 had chicken as the first ingredient, not chicken byproduct and not corn or wheat. I thought I was getting him quality foog by switching, but now I don't know. Is there just something about purina that I don't know? I do want to make sure and not feed him or my other dogs something that is not good for them. thank you to all. Oh, and yes, Raul, you always do give informative answers. You had responded several times on an older post I had about my labs allergic reactions (no reactions since his original 2, knock on wood).

One more quick question. Does anyone know if they can use a local anesthetic (lidocaine or something similar) around the hot spot area to make it less painful to remove the matted area. They could hardly touch them on Tuesday because it hurt Jasper so much. The pus and redness is gone now, and I would like to get the matts out when we go to the vet for a follow up this afternoon, but I don't want him to hurt like he did when they tried Tuesday.

Post 1 reply.-

Here´s the situation, we don´t know if the dog is allergic to something and we can´t find out until the animal is exposed to the allergen and the allergy manifests, the animal may be allergic to something in the diet, either to the protein source ( animal or vegetable meal ) or to the carbohidrate source ( vegetable flours ), some animals may be allergic to both, the protein source and the vegetable source, why is this ? we don´t know for sure but we do know that certain protein and carbohidrate sources are more allergenic than others, soy ( soy meal ) and corn gluten is known by us as one of the most allergenic protein sources, the same way we know that corn is one of the most allergenic carbohidrate souces, however some animals are allergic to chicken, others are allergic to turkey, others are allegic to certain fish species, others are allergic to several at the same time; the situation here is that most dogs are not allergic to any of them, therefore the food companies manufacture foods for the vast majority of the population, the system is fine but not infalible, I say not infalible because within that population there are individualities, problem arises when you have the bad luck of owning one of those individualities, it´s like purchasing a lottery ticket and winning the lottery. When the generality does not apply to individuals is when you have to find the solution to a problem.

In many cases the same companies that manufacture the food offer alternatives to treat those individuals that do not adjust to the general population in the form of special diets with different protein and carbohidrate sources, if that company doesn´t offer them there are other companies that do and if that doesn´t work there are other alternatives, there´s always light at the other end of the tunnel.

I´ve been to the Purina facilities and labs in St Louis, not only the test facilties are extraordinary but the degree of professionalism of the people working there in all the departments is overwhelming, they make good quality products.

Post 2 reply.-

Hot spots represent a particular problem, first the animal has the hotspot reaction, it itches and hurts, the animal licks or scratches, to an already damaged area the animal adds the trauma of licking and/or scratching, since the integrity of the skin is broken then bacteria begin to grow infecting the area, which causes more itching and more pain, more licking, more scratching, more trauma and so on, what started as a very small area in a matter of days it becomes a huge problematic area because it extends; I´ve had cases where they bring me a dog attatched to hot spot, yep, that big is the hot spot.

The use of local anesthesics like lidocaine in hot spots is contraindicated. Hot spots have bacteria growing in them, local anesthesics like lidocaine are methabolized by the bacteria and use it to grow. The only local anesthesic is use is ice to make the area numb while the procedure is taking place

Here are the ingredients in Purina One Chicken & Rice:

Chicken (natural source of glucosamine), brewers rice, corn gluten meal, poultry by-product meal (natural source of glucosamine), whole grain corn, whole grain wheat, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), non-fat yogurt, animal digest, calcium phosphate, salt, potassium chloride, caramel color, calcium carbonate, choline chloride, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, zinc sulfate, Vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, niacin, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulfate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, garlic oil, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.
R-4154

Here are the ingredients in Canidae: No byproducts, no corn, no wheat.

Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, White Rice, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Flax Seed, Sun Cured Alfalfa Meal, Sunflower Oil, Chicken, Lecithin, Monocalcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Linoleic Acid, Rosemary Extract, Sage Extract, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Mixed Tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), Zinc Amino Acid Chelate, Manganese Amino Acid Chelate, Iron Amino Acid Chelate, Copper Amino Acid Chelate, Cobalt Amino Acid Chelate, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Ascorbic Acid (source of Vitamin C), Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (source of B2), Beta Carotene, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid, D-Biotin, Sodium Selenite, Dried Papaya, Vitamin B12 Supplement.

My dogs are on raw, and they're having Salmon, cottage cheese, egg and supplements tonight.

I'll agree to disagree with Raol on Purina :-)

We went to the vet this afternoon. And I have to say that we are so proud of Jasper. He was such a good brave boy. His hot spots are so much improved. And he let the vet use her little clippers and she was able to trim all the clumpy crusty area off so he can continue to heal properly. He didn't whine or whimper even once. Needless to say he got rewarded with treats when we got home. We are so proud of our "little" giant (85# 5 months old)!!

I too will agree to disagree with Raul on Purina.

FWIW, years of skin problems (hot spots, rashes, and interdigital cysts) vanished on our dogs when we changed to a dry food without byproducts, wheat, and corn and stopped serving canned wet food. Instead, we use lamb and rice-based dry food, supplemented with cooked meats (liver, beef, fish, chicken, etc.) and a tiny bit of yogurt.

As one of our dogs seems to be allergic to grass, we routinely wash and dry his feet too. Otherwise he licks his paws nonstop, which then remain wet and, as Raul noted, become a perfect incubation environment.

Actually chicken meal is a better ingredient that chicken. It's a cute little game that the manufactuers like to play. By definition chicken is pretty much the whole bird.That includes the bones and water weight. In order to be useable in the manufacturing processed it has to be converted to chicken meal. Therefore a food that list chicken meal actually has more chicken than one that list whole chicken as the first ingredient. This is because ingredients are listed in descending order by weight and the whole bird would be the heaviest ingredient.

Lisa

Just a quick follow-up. I switched all 3 of my dogs from Purina to Canidae yesterday. Hopefully between that and the extra care we are taking with brushing his fur and keeping him dry will prevent the hot spots from re-occuring. And in light of the newest food recalls, I feel so much better knowing that they are not eating something with wheat.

That's terrific Onyxdaily! You may find softer poop for a bit on the Canidae. You can add a little canned pumpkin to their meals to help with that.

I have a big black Chow that develops Hot Spots almost every summer. Moisture gets trapped in his undercoat which stays against his skin - bingo. Hot Spot.

Cut away as much of the fur around it and use Neosporin until you can get a prescription for Panlog Cream.