The Five Dog Blog: Living Life Simply Messy: Gotta Lotta Mites <...still...>

Rookie is looking better than ever but sadly is still scraping positive for Demodex. We just can't win with this boy! We had him scraped a few weeks ago and several mites were found on scrapings from his face, feet, and legs. It was very disappointing overall, but at least there were less mites found than previously so we are moving forward. Just very, very slowly.

He's growing up so fast!!!

I went ahead and had him scraped this past weekend as well for comparison purposes :). This scraping only showed one mite!! ONE MITE :). While normally it's really hard to demodex mites on any skin scrapings, it's at least way less than we had been seeing before. I did a slight jig when I heard one mite, LOL.

Supplements

Rookie is still taking Transfer Factor and I plan to continue that for the rest of his life. He is also still dining on Stella and Chewy's frozen patties. I have been changing protein sources on him pretty continuously and while he has LOVED them all, he has done best on Duck Duck Goose and Surf 'N Turf. I think it's because those are 'cool' meat sources. He is currently gorging out on Dandy Lamb - they have such cute names :).

He is still also getting Ivermectin, although we have lowered the dose from 1.3 mL to 0.3 mL. I have not continued with the milk thistle for a few months, mostly because we ran out and I've been lazy on ordering another supply. But it hasn't made a noticeable difference yet. He is also no longer doing any other immune support besides the Transfer Factor. Maybe in the Spring we'll start something up again when he had more chance of a flare-up, however I did not notice any real improvements while he was on them or anytime after.

Rookie is still getting antibiotics in the form of Cephalexin because of the threat of pustules and staph infection. Luckily, his feet are almost back to normal - well his version of normal anyway. They are a lot less swollen and actually have hair on them! Plus they aren't bleeding anymore which is huge :).

Big, beautiful feet :).

Going Forward

So now we are just going to hopefully maintain this through winter and keep scraping! I will have to reevaluate before Spring hits though because last year his issues started again when Spring blomed. So I think next year we are going to start prevention early and be ready so that it doesn't get out of control and then reassess with whatever happens. Maybe we should move south to get away from the allergens :), haha.