Designer Dog Beds Your Best Friend Will Love
If your dog is your best friend, you don’t want him to
sleep on the cold, hard floor. Chances are, however, that
you probably don’t want him to stretch out on your
beautiful suede sofa, your leather easy chair, or your
great-grandmother’s antique divan. The solution? One of
the many exceptional designer dog beds that are available.

These days, dog lovers can find dog beds at nearly any pet
store, online or offline. However, if you want to find a
high-class designer dog bed, you may need to head to an
exclusive online dog store or a brick-and-mortar pet
boutique. Read more »

My skin allergy has been a continuous problem for me almost as long as I have lived with Mum and Dad. From the first Summer that I was here I started to scratch and itch, and it was very annoying for me and everybody else. Mum would put a tee shirt on me when I was in the house to protect my fur: not very cool, but it helped. I did not have fleas, and Mum keeps my protection up by giving me Frontline Plus every month. I used to feel an uncontrollable urge to lick the itchy patches, and I lost a lot of fur on the patches I licked. That loss of fur led to infection and then you have a vicious circle of allergy and infection. I have visited four different vets over that time and non of them had made any difference to my condition. They gave it lots of names – skin atopy, severe dog eczema, pruritis – and charged plenty of money but they did not cure it. We have met plenty of other dogs and their families with the same problem, especially Collies like me. Non of them had found a cure either.

You notice I am speaking in the past tense? Clever dog!! But that is because there seems to be a cure and it came from the lovely new vet who treated me after my ear was ripped in the pitbull attack. The vet noticed the bare patches on my legs and she prescribed an anti-histamine tablet called Periactin. I have been taking 4mg of this twice a day for a week, and yesterday Mum and Dad noticed that I had not been scratching!! I have not needed to wear a tee shirt, they have not had to stop me from itching and I can get on with the business of being a dog.

If your dog is having problems with itching, ask your vet to prescribe Periactin for him and see if it works for you.

My allergies have been really quite bad since I moved to the seaside, and Mum has been putting my tee shirts on me as much as possible. She has even even dosing me with Children’s antihistamine medication as well. Today I had a bath, for the second time this week using Malaseb shampoo. Mum was so upset when she combed me afterwards and found fleas on my skin!!If you can smell vinegar, that’s me – I will report back asap.

“Kevin, stop it”, “Put your T-shirt on, Kevin”. These have been the conversations in our house for the past months since my allergy got worse in the warm weather. You might remember that Mum decided to try out a new supplement of omega fatty acids, which are essential for healthy skin in dogs. I have now been taking one spoonful of the supplement with my meals for just over two weeks. This weekend Mum realised that I haven’t been itching – and I have not had to wear that stupid t-shirt during the day. Early days still, but we are hopeful that the supplement is beneficial for atopy in dogs.

The latest idea for helping my allergy is a supplement of linoleic acid, which really means Omega6 Fatty Acid). This is an essential fatty acid for a dog but we cannot make it ourselves.
The symptoms of a fatty acid deficiency are pretty much the problems I have been suffering. They include dry, flaky skin, greasy dull coat and inflamed skin patches after the dog has worried at them. The solution we are trying is a blend of Omega 3, 6 and 9 oils that Mum bought at the local health food shop, I take a spoonful with my food each day. I gave been taking the supplement for ten days now, I will report on progress.

The latest idea we have had for dealing with my skin allergy came from some research that Mum did a couple of weeks ago. Although my Burns’ Dog Food, and the James Wellbeloved that I now use, both contain the essential nutrients, there may be some extra elements that could relieve my condition.