Hi - I'm new here - actually stopped in to crosspost about needing help for Gustav evacuees...
Anyway, I know quite a bit about dog with allergies, and can help. Being a professional petsitter in the burbs, I take care of a lot of purebred dogs taht have been bred right into food allergy issues - they can be really miserable. I swear, there is one spaniel who can't even LOOK at a picture of a chicken without breaking out in a rash... This information comes from sitting through many lectures given by Lowell Ackerman, the top dermatologist at Tufts vet school, who also wrote the books the other vets use.
Here's my Itchy Dog Answer - look it over and see if there's anything that applies, and let me know if you need more - if it's a seasonal problem, it's probably a contact allergy, like pollen or grass, and if it's all the time, it's probably food. Course, it could be both...sigh...and any dog with a weak immune system can also have a bloom of dmeodectic mange - not contagious but needs treatment for that dog - and you can do it with neem oil.
but here's my old stock answer, hope some of it helps...
First. rinse him every day with tepid, not warm water.
That will remove anything that is causing a contact allergy - pollen, dust, grass ...
Make sure he has Frontline on, to ward off fleas.
Next, switch him carefully over to a 2 ingredient diet.
The top food allergens are corn, chicken,beef,soy, wheat, and dairy, but dogs can be allergic to just about anything.
Sometimes you can get away with just putting them on something like Nutro lamb & rice - you mighttry that first, just to see if it'll be that easy. Wellness has a very good line of hypoallergenic foods, and a bunch dogs have found relief with Atlantic Whitefish & Sweet potato (of course my dog is the only one in the world that is allergic to sweet potato!)...
You may have to resort to feeding a two ingredient diet - if the kibble doesn't work, pick two ingredients and feed them exclusinvely in their original form - like fish and oatmeal, say - so you actually know what the dog is eating. Jack Mackeral comes in a nice big can at the supermarket.
A couple weeks on that kind of diet won't hurt him, and if you find that is necessary too continue, you can look on
www.BalanceIt.com for a recipe tool that will help you balance it for him, and Rx vitamins with no additives that will round out the diet so it's a good long term one.
Remember that any other treats - like beef bones, rawhide, or pig's ears - are the wrong food, and will cause a reaction if that's what he's allergic to, so cut those all out, and no table scraps, either. Chewable heartworm tablets are usually beef based, so you would also need the ones that aren't - there are some, I don't remember the name...
Speak to your vet about giving his some fish oil - omega 3 is a powerful anti-inflammatory, and only a food - but you must take into consideration whether your dog is susceptible to pancreatitis. Most healthy dogs are fine, but little dogs can get into trouble with smaller amounts of stuff - but it is a really good thing or dogs with any kind of skin problem, and a very easy fix.
Good luck, this is a tough problem to solve - but not impossible. But this is the way the top veterinary dermatologist in the US does it - and I have used it sucessfully on many dogs.
