All dogs itch, right? Wrong. 

It is the most common reason people take their dogs to the vets, given, but not all dogs itch. Thank goodness. 

So, what are the reasons dogs itch? You’ll be pleased to hear we can reduce the million-and-one reasons down to just three categories: parasites, allergies/sensitivities and infection. That’s it. Most itchy dogs are in one of these groups. If they’re unlucky, they may be in more than one or all three. Let’s dive in and have a closer look. 

Parasites

Fleas are the number one reason dogs itch. They’re easy to get rid of using pesticide spot-ons or tablets from the vet, but I think prevention is better than cure. At my practice, we don’t use drugs on dogs every month if possible, we use essential oil sprays and herbs. Our favourites are Dermadog Insect Defence Spray and Cedarcide spray. We use Billy No Mates herbs in food or the Hedgerow Hounds Nature’s Bounty herb mix. These plant-based treatments can help with ticks, Harvest mites and Walking Dandruff, Chyletiella. 

Allergies and Sensitivities  

There are four areas to look at here. Three are on the outside: external allergens like tree and grass pollens, indoor allergens, e.g. house dust, house dust mites etc., and contact allergies where a dog might react on the neck to a new collar or harness. One sensitivity is on the inside of the dog, though – food. 

Sensitivities (sometimes called ‘allergies’, wrongly) are pretty simple. If your dog comes in contact with the offending allergen, they react. If your dog is pollen allergic, they’ll itch in the spring and summer months, not, or at least less, in the winter. If they’re sensitive to something inside the house, they’ll likely itch all year round, of course. If they are contact sensitive, it’s sometimes obvious because of where they’re itching/chewing. 

Food intolerances can be tricky, though. Dogs itch their ears, rears or feet usually, but not exclusively. If you’re feeding your dog a protein they react to, this may explain a persistent or frequently flaring itch in the ears or feet or hot spots on the skin when no other explanation makes sense. 

To investigate, find a food that provides all the protein from once source, e.g. rabbit, venison, duck or goat. I almost always go raw for these. Talk to your raw food supplier as they’ll have lots of options. 

Do a ‘food trial’. That is, give exclusively one protein source (watch that treats are the same protein as the trail protein!) for 1-2 weeks. If they start itching with any given meat protein, then you have your culprit. Continue with other trials as there are usually more than one. Avoid reactive proteins for at least six months. 

Infection

When the skin is devitalised or irritated by parasites or allergies, it’s really prone to infection because it becomes hot and/or wet. This is a perfect environment for the bad bugs on the skin to take off into an infection. If the infection is out of control, see your vet. 

The three bugs that cause major issues are bacteria, usually Staphylococci, yeast, often our smelly-sock-like ‘Malassezia’ and fungi, ‘Ringworm’ (which generally presents as small bald greyish areas, not round and nothing to do with worms!). 

Take-Home Message

When presented with an itching dog, this is a sketch of how you can think about what might be happening. Remember, there may be more than one factor at play, e.g. a dog is itching because there’s beef liver in their ‘Chicken’ raw, but they happen to get a dose of fleas mid-summer which then goes on to create a bit of a yeasty secondary infection. 

Welcome to the joys of Dermatology. It’s like an Agatha Christie murder mystery. You just have to keep eliminating potential guilty causes until you get down to the rock-bottom cause of your itchy dog.