[Dailydrool] ALLERGIES

[Muriel Fiona Napier]

"Well, I must consider myself an expert by now as I have had two  Basset
with sever alleriges. after having my first Basset"  

Alas, I'm no expert :-0 but can offer my own experiences .

"desensitizing shots only to have her get much worse ! which by the way is
NORMAL,,  you have to realize that you are"

To a point ... but everything is relative. "much" worse? How "much" worse is
acceptable / expected / bearable for the dog?

"after several months of trial and error, we finally realized  that we were
starting her injections during the ( peak allergy )  season  and that we
were over loading her immune system,  the key issue here is to  start  the
injections in the LATE FALL and EARLY WINTER.  it  takes time and patients .
but DONT give up."

Good point, and one the vet should have made. But even starting the shots in
late Fall and continuing all Winter as we did with Bonnie is no guarantee of
success.
  
"the shots work !!!!!"

Not always. There is actually a fairly large percentage of dogs who do not
benefit from allergy shots. Not surprisingly, most vets don't want to talk
about this (or don't know about it). I forget the actual figure, but it's in
the region of 40+ percent. In other words, allergy shots will do no good to
more than four out of every ten dogs.
 

Muriel Fiona Napier
t: 519.362.1275
pui me amat, amat et canems meum