Mr. Brim's skin

While Sam's skin is slowly improving, our furry son Brimley is having his own skin problems. About a month ago he started scratching around his ears and I noticed some scabs from it. He started itching so bad that clumps of hair were falling out and decorating our tan carpet with big fuzzy black polka dots. And just to reiterate how annoying this is for all of us, Sam finds a lot of joy in searching for these hair balls to taste them. Gross.

A few weeks back I took Brimley into the vet after he started to get really bad. She assumed it was some sort of mite that he may have contracted at the dog park, and did a few tests ($$) to make sure.

But she didn't find anything. We decided to treat for the mites just in case ($$) and we are on our last dose of it today. I haven't seen any improvement in the look of his ears.

Another skin test was done ($$) a week ago along with a fungal culture ($$) to see if there was any staph of ringworm involved. Both were negative, and the skin scrape only showed small amounts of bacteria.

So, Brimley is currently on steroids, which have caused him to pee constantly and feel hungry all the time. They have helped his itching, but not enough that I feel like he is well. He is also on an antibacterial cream that doesn't seem to be doing much either.

The poor puppy. I gave him a bath yesterday, and I am surprised that he is not bald from the amount of hair that is falling off of him. Our next step is to change foods to see if it could be an allergy. The Dr also attended a veterinary dermatology convention this week, and used Brimley as her subject. We are waiting to hear what she learned after talking to all the other doctors.

We sure hope our boys feel better soon!