I’ve discussed at length our continued battle with Chaos’s allergies here, but he isn’t the only dog in the house who frequents the vet’s office. Ares is only a year and a half old but he’s already had three separate medical issues. We’ve dealt with Demodectic Mange, Luxating Patella and most recently Cherry Eye. The latter 2 I will discuss in later posts. We’ve lovingly begun referring to him as the genetic bomb.
Ares came from a farm just outside Louisville, KY. He’s a pure bred Boston Terrier so along with that much smaller gene pool comes greater probability for breed specific health problems. Dedomectic Mange, or Demodex, is actually not hereditary in and of itself. In layman’s terms, Demodectic Mange is a skin condition caused by an overproduction of demodex mites that feed on the hair follicle and oil glands. If left untreated, the rash can continue to spread and cause lesions and hair loss. This is not the highly contagious form of mange most people think of when they hear the word mange (that’s sarcastic mange). Most veterinarians believe that all healthy dogs have some demodex mites on the skin in small numbers. Demodectic Mange occurs when a dog has an underdeveloped immune system or the immune system has for whatever reason been compromised or weakened.
Puppies can get Demodex from their mother but the condition is not passed to them while in the womb. The mother’s skin may contain some demodex mites in healthy numbers but transfer to the puppies after birth when they suckle on mom’s skin. Demodectic Mange can then occur as puppies do not have fully developed immune systems and may not be able to control the mite population. The genetic factor comes into play if a dog inherits the mother’s deficiency of antibodies necessary to combat the demodex mites.
We did not find out Ares had Demodectic Mange until he was nearly 6 months old. When he was maybe 4 months old I had noticed he was scratching often and when I brushed him, white flakes would come off his skin. I asked the vet but was told this was probably just dry skin. And then he started losing little patches of fur, his skin and face developed a pinkish tint and his fur seemed dull looking. He was due to be neutered so before surgery the vet took a skin scraping. Sure enough, he had Demodex, and not only that, he had also developed a secondary skin infection. We were sent home with a bottle of Ivermectin, a syringe and some antibiotics.
Just over a year later, Ares is still on Ivermectin, although he’s down to one dose a week as opposed to the everyday routine we had for many months. Ivermectin is liquid medication given orally. Ares was not okay with having a syringe full of icky tasting stuff shoved into his mouth at first. I can’t say I blame him. That’s where the cheese whiz comes in. I mentioned we use this to squirt on the pill we give to Chaos. Well, same goes for Ares. Squirt some cheese in his mouth, still the syringe in the side and in goes the mediation. Ares has become so used to this now he doesn’t try to run away or fight us when he sees the syringe come out. There’s probably a lot of other ways people have successful given their dogs medication, but this has by far worked the best for us.
A lot of puppies naturally get rid of the mites as they immune system fully develops. Ares was not one of those dogs. He probably is deficient in the specific antibodies needed to keep the mite under control. He’s had 2 additional bouts of secondary skin infection since the first one but now his skin looks healthy, his fur has grown back and looks nice and shiny. Ivermectin is actually a lesser used treatment for demodex mange but after discussing the options with our vet and researching online, we were comfortable with this treatment plan and it worked. Demodextic Mange can be a battle for some dogs for many months, years or even a lifetime. Ares may have to stay on Ivermectin his whole life but that’s okay as long as it keeps him our healthy, happy, bouncy Boston boy that he is.
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