Expert: Dr. Louis N. Gotthelf - 7/27/2005

Question
Hi. I have a 6 yr old american pit bull terrier (Diamond),who has horrible skin ailments. She has allergies that start out as seasonal and the sores and hot spots stay for months. The allergy injections from the vet used to help alot but no longer even phase the condition. She has also been getting alot of ear yeast infections lately. A friend has told me to try adding garlic to her food and apple cider vinegar to her water. I have read online that garlic can be toxic to dogs. Are these remedies safe and do you think they would help with her problems? If not what should I try?
Thank you a lot in advance!
Courtney.

Answer
My first advice to you is to find a vet that know how to treat skin allergies properly.  I find that if I have a dog that is unresponsive to steroids, then it is probably not an allergy or the dog has become tolerant of the seroids.  There are other drugs that can be used to help treat allergies.

As far as the ears, I would recommend that you flush the dog's ears with vinegar and water 50:50.  I prefer to use a product called Malacetic Otic (www.dermapet.com), which has vinegar and boric acid in it. This product is a good ear cleaner and has boric acid to dry the ears, which really helps the yeast infections.

But the yeasts are there because of the allergies to begin with, so that really needs to be treated properly.