By Dr Nina Mantione

I love summer, but as much as I love the endless summer nights, I hate the endless  itching! In my area, it seems like every other patient I see this time of year is an itchy, scratchy mess. And my patients’ pet parents are bleary eyed from being kept up half the night by the thumping and licking of a scratching pet.  By the time they come to see me, or a veterinarian like me, things are usually a little desperate.

Summer (actually late spring through mid-fall) is the season for allergic dermatitis, aka: atopy; seasonal allergies; or allergic skin disease. These are the very same allergies that give people hay fever.  Allergies to pollens from grass and trees manifest more commonly with skin symptoms in dogs and cats, rather than the respiratory symptoms typically experienced by people.  And – sadly – for those of you hoping for a magic pill, as the billion dollar antihistamine industry can attest to – there is no cure for allergies. 

I feel for my itchy patients.  I see little white dogs whose feet are pink from licking, and Labradors with secondary ear infections stinky enough to stop you in your tracks.  My affected cats seem to be able to lick themselves half bald without their owners ever seeing them actually grooming.  Having once been the victim of a horrible case of poison ivy, I can sympathize with the torment of a summer full of enough itchiness to make your skin bleed.  I do my best to hold the symptoms at bay.  Pet owners leave the office with loads of antihistamines, steroids, antibiotics and expensive shampoos, but the relief these provide is often temporary.  More expensive therapies are available, and, while they better (and are covered by Petplan pet insurance) they too are not 100% guaranteed to be effective.  I probably make more referrals to the veterinary dermatologist in the months of July and August than I do in all of the other months combined.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do, short of moving to Antarctica (I’m fairly sure that all of that ice will lower the pollen counts), to get rid of the seasonal allergies altogether.  We just have to buckle down, ensure there isn’t an underlying food allergy, control the symptoms, fight the itching and wait for the first frost to come.