My poor dogs cannot seem to catch a break! Usually it's Allie that's messed up with some sort of allergy or injury but this time it was our rock- Otis. He woke up Friday morning with his lower eyelid sagging out away from his face and his eye was red. It looked like he had some swelling too. He acted normal though and not like he was in pain which was good. He didn't seem to mess with his eye either. His eye looked totally gross though!
Usually I jump the gun a bit and run to the vet, or even the emergency vet if it's evening. This time though I thought back to my own swollen eye that I mysteriously woke up with one day a few months ago. I treated my own eye by rinsing it out and putting a hot compress on it. I decided to do the same for Otis and resolved that if his eye was not significatly better by morning we'd be off to the vet!
Saturday morning I awoke to the usual, Otis standing over me staring down at me thinking WAKE UP ALREADY AND FEEEEED ME! Low and behold his eye was totally better, not a sign of redness or weird sagging lids.
Now as I sit here typing this he's plotting to figure out a way to crawl under my laptop and onto my lap... I'm so blessed.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This is a blog about my two male Pugs Otis and Alister (Allie) and their wacky adventures. I hope it will be a place to share stories, and advice about this loving, stubborn and playful breed. Enjoy!
otieallie
Check out my tshirts!
Blog Archive
About Me
Just a quick note, the videos below are random pug videos off of youtube, they are not my pups. Also the video plays at the top of the page.
6 comments:
I'll leave this message in both your '08 and '09 comments. I've got an allergy pug, too - "Mav" (yes, I loved the movie Top Gun!). Trying to get suggestions on what dry dog food to use. Hearing from an established pet sitter/pet products business owner that food should not come from a 'big box' pet store - needs to be 'specialized' - I think she mentioned "Wellness" brand?? Any suggestions are appreciated!
Hi CKinNC
I actually use a diff. food for each dog. Generally food related dog allergies come from fillers or wheat ad grain they use in dog food. Otis who has less allergies eats Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance brand Limited ingredients allergy formula they have many flavors, he eats duck and sweet potato. Allie who has the worst allergies gets his food from the vet his is Hill's prescription diet Z/D ultra allergen free. The Hills brand is crazy expensive but works great for him when nothing else would. Hope that helps!
One more note on the food... The Natural Balance food can be purchased at Petco so is pretty easy to get ahold of.
Hi - I came across your blog when I googled pug allergies and I wanted to reach out to you because I have a 2 year old male pug and am going through almost all of the same things that you discussed in your 2007 post on allergies. He has been on the same duck and potato diet, as well as various forms of steroids for the past 6 months but nothing is helping. The allergy specialist we've been taking him to wants to move forward with allergy testing because they think it's environmental allergies and the change in diet hasn't helped at all. I wondered if you could let me know if the testing and injections you give your pug have been successful... would you recommend going through the testing and injections if our pug is suffering from almost the exact same symptoms? Thanks so much!
SCW,
Thanks for your comment. Poor pugs they have it rough! To be honest the testing did help in someways it alerted us to the environmental allergy problem that Allie has, I was amazed by some of the stuff I never had thought of. For instance he's allergic to feathers, I had a down comforter ( got rid of it ). Wool too- so I can't touch him if I'm wearing any, dust, ants, trees you name it. So some of the discoveries were helpful. One thing that was hard was that I felt I was looking for an answer as to how to fix it and I wasn't given one
We did the shots for awhile in conjunction with a couple other things. We're not sure how if the shots directly helped or if it was the other things which we still use.
Currently we have Allies allergies mostly under control but we really have to stay on top of it. Here's what we know works.
-Food- Science Diet prescription Z/D (gold Label) it's spendy but as soon as we try other stuff he starts getting bumps on his face. I've heard Purina makes a similar product for cheaper but I haven't tried it. No other treats!
-Allergy pills- Chlorpheniramine 4mg We're supposed to give 1/2 a pill to a full pill twice a day. We don't always do this but it makes a difference. These pills are over the counter at the grocery store or you can get them at the vet.
-Medicated face wipes (maleseb plegets- (sp?)These are a LIFE SAVER! His poor face gets so infected without these. We use these regularly but more so if he's showing signs of a breakout. If he does breakout we try and pop his sores open to get the infection out and clean his face with these and up his allergy pill dose. We've been successful with this and haven't had to use antibiotics with him in probably 2 years now.
-No plastic toys!
-Stainless steel bowls
As for other things we do that we can't really measure the success of, no perfumed detergent (I use bio-clean), air purifier, wash things they lay on in hot water to kill dust mites, hypo-allergenic dog shampoo. We also try to keep him out of damp places like the bathroom.
I know that is a long reply. It might be worth it for you to get the tests done and do the shots, chances are if he's anything like my pug he'll be allergic to most of the stuff they test for which is overwhelming and you'll feel compelled to try the shots which may have contributed to Allie's symtoms lessening. I for sure know the other things I've listed have made a HUGE impact though.
Thank you so much for all the suggestions and info! Really appreciate you taking the time to respond and answer all my questions!
Post a Comment