One Cure for biting paws and irritaed skin

Hi all

My dog had a terrible time with skin irritation around face and paws, spreading to groin etc. He would lick and bite them till skin was gone and under tissue was showing through. Very upsetting to witness. He had to wear a big collar 24/7. A very common problem apparently with many dogs. I found a cure quite by accident and told my vet I had found a solution after years of creams and tablets and he was astonished at how logical and simple it was. I cured him completely. I want all the dog owners affected out there to try this, and please spread the word!!!.

I feed my dog 'dry' pellets or kibble moistened with water. One day quite by accident I found the cure. I realised that when away from home his symtoms seemed to lessen over time and eventuually go away. His sores dried up and he was cured. When we went home again after a couple of months, my husband took over feeding him again. The irritation came back and licking started again. Soon the collar was back on. I went away again for 2 months with the dog, and again he was cured. So I wondered what I was doing differently to my husband, which was obviously the cause.

I watched My husband prepare the kibble with the water and asked him if he always used 'warm' water to mix in. He said "Yes of course, I don't have time to wait for the food to cool down if I put hot water in it in the mornings, or at night for that matter!!"..... and that was the lightbulb moment. I always put boiling water in the kibble and let it cool down before giving it to my dog. Making sure it was cooled enough all way through!

I realised the boiling water I used to put in when I made his food was killing the storage mites in the kibble which he obviously had an allergy to. Mixing only warm water in did not kill the mites and they spread from his mouth to his face, then to his paws and groin when he licked himself as dogs do.

So please remember, moisten your dogs food with boiling water and let it cool before serving. Don't take a shortcut with warm or tepid water.

Also I found that mud from walkies can also contain mites which irritate when the mud dries and they spread. So I always give him an underside bath in a bucket of water after walkies. He is now totally cured.

You haven't said which food you are giving; it would be useful to know. An interesting post and thank you for bringing the subject up. I had not heard of storage mites in dog food so have had a quick search and found this information along with many more articles on the subject. For many owners, softening kibble with boiling water is undesirable as they want them to crunch it. I must admit I was a bit puzzled at first because kibble is extruded and subjected to extremely high temperatures which reduces nutrition but I would have thought that it would also prevent this sort of thing - it clearly doesn't. Apparently some of the measures that reduce or eliminate the incidence of this are:

Purchasing grain free kibble

Freezing it

Storing in airtight containers at the right temperature

Buying small bags and washing the container out thoroughly before transferring the new food into it.

Feeding home made food (including raw)

Feeding wet or canned food.

wow. this really needs highlighting. very interesting.

I have always put boiling water on my dry food but my dog is still a very itchy dog. I have tried loads of different things ( food, drug's, natural remedies, different walk's) some of which work for a while but nothing that has stopped my dog from beeing itchy.

I was concerned you were only killing the mites and leaving possible allergens behind so I did a 'Google'.

http://www.dog-nutrition-advice.com/dog-food-storage-mites.html

It seems the dog may possibly become sensitive to the dead mites once you have killed them with the boiling water.

We have raw fed our adult dogs (due to an allergy in one dog) but are dry feeding two young dogs at the moment. Our dry dog food is good qualty and contains potato rather than grain. We store it in a cool place in food quality clip top plastic drums. This prevents any mites getting in unless the mites were already in when it was purchased. I haven't seen any on the drum. They look like dust.

I had the same problem with my dog Jan. Tried all different shampoos, remedies and food for two years and nothing helped. I cured it completely when I switched to raw feeding. Adding boiling water to food to kill the mites won't help if it's not the mites that your dog is allergic to.