Understanding Canine And Feline Skin Problems

Skin is the largest and one of the most important organs in the body. It helps prevent toxins from staying in the body and is a barrier against harmful things in the environment.

Skin conditions are common in dogs and often are the beginning of an undiscovered problem.

Allergies are the biggest cause for skin problems in cats as well as dogs. Medication, food, and pollen are common allergies and cause scratching and redness. Having an unhealthy diet with deficiencies also causes the previous symptoms.

Changing an animal's diet will usually fix the skin condition. So, if you cannot figure out the problem, try to give your pet higher quality food or add raw meat. This will often bring about a huge improvement.

Sometimes just changing the food will not make a difference, so you should think of types of food that might be causing the allergy. Chicken, beef, soy, and corn often cause allergies in cats and dogs. Try removing those four ingredients to eliminate them as the problem. If removing those ingredients does not help, you should look at the other common ingredients that might be responsible. Just start by testing to find a food that works. These tests could take many weeks to discover the true culprit.

After you rule out food allergies, think about allergies caused by the inside or outside environment.

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Ask yourself what is newly changed in the house. It could be a variety of things, especially consider any chemicals like paint or cleaning sprays. Ask yourself questions such as when does the skin problem occur if it is seasonal, pollen is a good possibility. Try to think of anything that has changed including recent vaccinations.

After trying to eliminate different allergens, if nothing helps try omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids which improve the look of the coat. Dandelions and milk thistle are herbal remedies that support the liver and can make a difference to the body.

Make sure you do not over bathe your pet; this can worsen the problem if your pet has dry skin. If you need to bathe a dry skinned pet, get a shampoo for dry skin. This is important especially if it includes oatmeal.

If allergies or dry skin are not the problem, it could also be caused by flea bite dermatitis. Scratching and biting will usually occur when an animal has fleas, but it can be worse if the animal is allergic to fleas. Being allergic to fleas can cause hair loss, soreness, and redness.

Look for fleas on your animal if you suspect that's the problem. Fleas are small, black specks at the root of the fur. Fleas are often on the hind legs, tail base, and ears. Flea dirt is dried blood. If you see what looks like dirt, you can test it by placing the dirt on a piece of white paper. Then you wet the dirt if it becomes red, you probably have fleas.

Other diseases cause skin conditions to occur. A thyroid imbalance causes the skin to be flaky, greasy, and dull. Infections can also cause the skin condition known as Cushing's Disease.

Mange is a skin disease caused by mites on the fur, usually on the face. Mange clears up on its own, but can become more serious if the animal cannot remove the mites. Ringworms cause scaly circular hairless spots on cats and dogs and is very contagious.

Animals need things to play with so they are not bored. They will lick themselves obsessively when they are anxious or bored. If the animal licks its paws, it can lose hair and roughness can also occur.

About the Author:

Saman Rashid is an experienced writer who is very knowledgeable about pets. She has written various articles on pets to help people deal with their PET problems. For further details, please visit http://allpetsinformation.blogspot.com/

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