I recommend starting by taking your dog to your veterinarian for assessment of the itch and medication recommendations. The most common reasons for itchy skin in dogs include skin infections, microscopic skin parasites such as scabies or demodex mites, food allergy, or pollen/dust allergies. The red spots and hairloss/swelling of the foot the you describe are suspicous for a bacterial skin infection. Your veterinarian can take skin scrapings to examine under the microscope for parasites and for skin infection. If skin infection is present, it is treated with antibiotics for 3-4 weeks and mild antibacterial shampoos. The itch can be treated symptomatically with mild oatmeal shampoos, fatty acids, antihistamines or a short course of oral steroids, but steroids are not a good choice for long term treatment due to their many side effects. If your dogs' itch persists or recurs despite anitbiotics and symptomatic medications, then I would suggest talking to your veterinarian about a prescription hypoallergenic diet. There is no accurate skin or blood test for food allergy; the test and the treatment are the strict hypoallergenic diet trial for 6-8 weeks with no other treats or foods. Lastly, if your dogs' symptoms persist despite all of the above, or if the symptoms only occur during certain seasons, then talk to your veterinarian about referral to a veterinary dermatologist for possible allergy skin testing and desensitization injections for pollen/dust allergies to identify and treat the underlying cause of the itch and recurrent infections, rather than just treating symptoms with medications (veterinary dermatologists can be found in your area by going to www.acvd.org and clicking on the "find a dermatologist" button). Hope that helps!
Kimberly Coyner, DVM
Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Dermatology
www.dermvet.com
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This sounds like an unusual amount of itching and may be related to an allergy of some kind. Our Dr. Coyner will answer here, but if it is allergy, your only hope is to identify the allergen through testing, and treat accordingly which will mean several trips to a veterinary dermatologist.
These can be really bothersome and can become so severe as to cause the dog to scratch out hair, cause secondary bacterial skin infections etc. So I would plan on some veterinary medical help.
Also I forgot to mention that these spots don't seem to cause him pain or discomfort and he is still playing and eating and everything as if nothing is wrong. The foot did seem to bother him just a little bit when I was trying to wash it down with water (his foot got a little muddy) but otherwise it doesn't seem to trouble him other than the itching.