This time of year often sets off dry skin in our Chows. With the weather changing and their new undercoat coming in, it can be an itchy situation. What can we do? Well, there are several things we can do to help.
- Bathing with an Oatmeal based shampoo can be soothing to the skin.
- Add Coconut Oil to your pets food. Add about a fourth of a teaspoon to start with. You can increase this to a full teaspoon each day over time. You want your pet to get used to having this in its food. Coconut Oil has many good properties with healthy skin being one of them.
- You can also rub Coconut Oil on your hands and then massage down to the skin. Chows will typically scratch and bite at the areas bothering them the most. Start with those areas.
- Feed your pet an egg each day. Eggs are fantastic for the skin.
- Olive oil added to the food can also be beneficial to the skin.
If itching is severe and the scratching seems to be constant or at least very frequent, you might want to give your dog a Benadryl tablet. One mg per pound every 8 – 12 hours is the rule of thumb. This should give your dog some relief until the food additives have time to kick in.
Constant scratching cannot be ignored. Once the skin is broken infection will quickly follow. You will have no choice at this point but to take your dog to the veterinary for antibiotics. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and our furry friends will thank us for it!