One possible reason being the obvious such as needing a bath or maybe it is fleas or mites. It could have been the shampoo that was used, but usually that would wear off not long after the bath.
Look for any signs on the skin of lesions or abnormalities. Does your dog scratch in the same area every time or just all around in general?
Are there certain times your dog has this problem, maybe after rolling around in the grass or walking through certain fields?
Dry skin is another possible reason. Does your dog have dandruff or signs of dry skin? One treatment for this is to put a small amount of olive oil and or an egg in their food.
Another possible reason is pent up energy; is your dog of a rather hyper breed who needs to be more active? This is one possible reason, but some good exercise should answer the question if that’s what was causing your dog to itch so much.
If you have ruled out fleas and mites and health reasons like these, then another big reason that some dogs itch like this is because of an allergy to something and it is usually their diet. One of the most common causes of allergies in a dog’s food is corn. Try to find a food that has no corn in it. Also check all of their treats as well, since they might contain corn. Wheat is another big allergy for dogs; some dogs are allergic to lamb.
Dogs are like humans in that it can be rather hard to figure out what they might be allergic to in their diet. Dogs should eat a healthy meat-based diet, most vets say.
Looking at dog food ingredients is just like human food, the first ingredient is what the food contains the most of, and looking at many dog foods, the first ingredient is corn.
Changing your dog’s food would be the next step. One of the better dog foods that contains no corn is Canidae. Other dog foods that have corn free choices are Blue Buffalo, Wellness and Solid Gold.
Since dog food isn’t as regulated as human food, you really have to do some reading to make sure what you feed your dog is healthy.
Update May 15, 2009:
During the past several months we tried everything from changing diets to restricted many different types of ingredients and nothing changed. Our dog kept scratching. The vet checked her out and said it was an environmental allergy, which could meant she could be allergic to almost anything, and it could take a long time to figure that out. The vet gave us some steroids to give the dog, a half a pill per day, then every other day. This did work. The dog stopped scratching and biting herself. Then after the steroids were gone we were to give her Benadryl every day, then every third day. This has also helped and she doesn’t scratch or bite herself like she used to.
The reason for the pills was to give her immune system time to heal since allergies are an immune system response.
We will see how this goes for now. It might also have something to do with the dog being a Border Collie with a lot of energy and the fact she could have worked on a ranch before someone took her to the animal shelter where we got her, and we don’t have any sheep or cattle for her to chase and pen it. Here is the latest on how we cured the dogs excessive scratching.
- Dog food analysis site: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/
