My first dog had pyroderma all the time. Her poor paws and legs only cleared up for 3 months of the year. We think now it was either that we were feeding her a corn based food, or that she was allergic to grass.
I'm so terrified of Pyroderma again with my dog Q.
Pyroderma is very itchy! Imagine misquito bites, poisin ivy, and flea bites all in one go.
The only thing I can suggest other than, getting a second opinion, as well as a new perminate vet(been with same vet for 16 years, and 2nd dog later!)is to keep her out of the said weeds/grass, keep the area around her mouth clean and keep her indoors for a few weeks and see if theres a difference. Antibiotics may never help with secondary infection, it didn't with my first dog

>>>She has another round of antibitoics,more predisone and a spray for the mouth area.This is the third bottle of anibiotics since march 17th.If anyway is familar with this illness I'd like to hear about it.Sorry for the rambling..TIA.DebbieDebbie, the treatment for pyroderma and pemphigus is very different...the rule of thumb is if the dog responds to antibiotics it is probably not pemphigus. Clavomox is the antibiotic for choice for lip fold pyroderma,along with an ointment for pyroderma.. however pred. should not be used until pyroderma is ruled out. ( pred. will be used for pemphigus though)
If it is pyroderma it could be primary or secondary...caused by offending agents such as weeds or even chew toys just for a couple examples or it could actually be due to the way the dogs lips actually are which causes a bacteria breeding place, if this is the case sometimes a surgical procedure to that area will correct the problem. If it's allergy related and the bacteria is secondary once treatment works if you remove the offending agents it more than likely won't come back.

Pemphigus on the other hand is different and is usually diagnosed by clinical signs along with a skin biopsy and immunologic testing.
hopefully that will help clear some stuff up for you.

I would believe that Lucy could have either disease, although lip fold dermatitis is certainly more common than pemphigus especially in basset hounds.

Pemphigus may or may not be itchy. The actual disease causes a layer of the skin to detach from layer below it. This causes a pustule (usually this lesion is missed), then crusts, scales, erosions, and ulcers. Usually pemphigus is symmetrical. Other possibilities include dermatophytosis (ringworm), ectoparasites (fleas, mites, lice), allergies, bacterial folliculitis, demodicosis, other immune-mediated skin diseases, cutaneous drug eruption, zinc responsive dermatitis, metabolic epidermal necrosis, and neoplasia.

The only way to diagnose pemphigus is to get biopsies. I would do a skin cytology on acetate tape to look for yeast and bacteria, a skin scrape to look for demodex, and if nothing showed up then a biopsy if I strongly suspected pemphigus. Depending on what her lips looked like, I may be more suspicious of something other than pemphigus, especially dermatitis.

In any case, I hope Lucy feels better soon.

Thanks,its still confusing but I do understand somewhat better.They must think she has both as she is on predidone and anitbiotics.The antibiotic is cephalexin.Her mouth is better,she has not rubbed,scratched for four days now and the redness,etc is gone.I'm not sure if its only because of taking the medecine though.She hasn't had the opportunity to eat the weeds as I take her out supervised only.She has tried though.She has had skin scrapes and they were fine..Debbie