Weimaraner Dog Question

Congrats on your new dog! Weims are wonderful dogs. Ours does seem to have sensitive skin too (he is 11 years old, but always has). A good way to tell is by looking on the inside of her ear. If our dog's is really pink/red we know he is having an allergic reaction to something (sometimes I think it is grass!). Our vet told us to give him Benedryl. I believe (you might want to check) it is 1 mg per pound of weight. We do the tablets which are 25 mg a piece. This really seems to help ours. Good luck!

Maybe it was the shampoo you used. There are no regulations about what can go into pet shampoos. It's pretty heinous.

We always just used Suave Naturals :) They're still not the best, but they're cheap, smell good, and are safer than the dog shampoos for everyone involved. Oh, and conditioner really helps. It's like lotion. We'd let it sit on our dog's skin/fur for a couple of minutes before rinsing.

Also, definitely don't do flea baths. Just get an herbal collar or an herbal spray. Not just to minimize irritation. Again, it's so much safer. Just be careful about pennyroyal around pregnant women. Pennyroyal is a popular insect repellent, but it's also an emmenogogue and dangerous to pregnancy.

We have a Weimaraner too and use an Oatmeal shampoo from our vet $12 it works great! Hope this helps :)

Hi LJ,
Asked my husband, who's a vet., & he recommended evaluating her diet for a possible food allergy...sometimes an ingredient like corn meal can make a dog feel itchy and a change in food brands can make all the difference. One of the best, although expensive, is the J/D or Hills brand.
Or she may be suffering from spots of dry skin on certain areas of her body. Look for dry,dandruff-type flakes. In that case, pet stores sell all kinds of shampoo/conditioners for that.
Good luck - that's a beautiful breed.
K.

What a wonderful addition you have added to your family. We are now on number 6 and 7. They are the best dogs we have ever had with children. Our two year old uses one of ours for a step stool and she just lays still while he is climbing on her.

She may have been allergic to what you used to bath her with. None of ours ever had a problem until I bathed them and once they managed to roll in the grass and mud they stopped. You also might be sure that her bedding does not have any chemicals on it. Our two year old decided to Febreez the dog bed when he saw his dad doing the furniture and the dogs had a problem with their bedding until I left it outside for two days.

J.

She is probably itchy b/c of dry skin & coat or allergies.
Both of our dogs stuggle with allergies and when we adopted our Papillion he had been mal-nurished and we needed to put him on vitamins for his skin and coat.

Malnurished doesn't mean starved btw it is poor nutrition so if she wasn't eating a high quality dog food and on a daily vitamin before you got her she was most likely malnurished.

We use ProCare vitamins from Melaleuca they are about 1/3 of the cost of the vitamins the vet wanted us to use and when he read the label and learned about the absorbaility he told us to keep using the ProCare. Both dogs get them daily.

For allergies we use over the counter Benadryl and pednisone, you vet can give you the dose. Also if she is new to you she may be feeling some anxiety, in which case the Benadryl will help with that too.

We also use the ProCare shampoo b/c it is soothing with out being medicated and the combination of oils in it kills all the creepy crawlies they bring in from the yard without exposing them and my family to additional pesticides.

We also use Comfortis for flea control instaed of frontline or another topical. It kills the fleas instantly when they bite. Some other products can take up to 12 hours to kills the critters they claim too. The comfortis also comes in a formula that has heartworm preventative so you only have to give one pill.

So go see your vet! lol
Congratulations on your new family member!

L. Seben
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We have a Weimaraner and his skin can be somewhat fussy at times. What did you use to bath her with? She may have just had a reaction to whatever you used or it may be too drying and you might need to switch to something else. Mine has broke out in a red rash before after being out playing in the yard. I have yet to figure out what that is about becuse he is outside a lot and it's very random. I would try a different dog shampoo.

They are wonderful dogs and so loyal, but be preapred they are typically very very clingy. Ours can't stand to be alone and either has to be around people or his other dog buddies.

I have one. They have very sensitive skin. Use a non-soap shampoo. you might want to change her diet too.

I would first look at what you washed the dog with. She could be allergic. We had a dog that was allergic to absolutely everything! We had a special shampoo the vet gave us to wash her with & she had to take meds but, we couldn't use the regular shampoos you can buy for dogs. And if she goes outside, she could have mosquito bites - just like people, they will bite dogs & they will itch after you get bitten - same with fleas, even tho they aren't on her now, if they bit her before, they will itch. Make sure you use heartworm preventitive. Heartworms are spread through mosquito bites. If none of that works to change the itchy skin, you need to take her to your vet & see if they can help.

Sometimes fleas can be very hard to see if it's not a huge infestation. A few days after her bath, check the back of her neck, and above her tail for "flea dirt", which is actually flea excrement. It is dark brown, and somewhat "hook" shaped. Sometimes you never see a flea, but you will know the pet has them from flea dirt.

If it's an allergy, it could be anything, but the culprit is almost always a food allergy. I am a huge dog food convert, after years of people trying to explain the difference between "good food" and "bad food". As far as I was concerned, dogs eat from the trash and drink from the toilet, so what difference did the food matter? There's a huge difference. To start with, there are ingredients that MANY dogs are allergic to that are used as fillers in the kind of food you can find at your local Walmart or grocery store. Secondly, the "meat" in most of those foods comes from unedible items, such as beaks, feet, etc. Again, there's where the fillers come in. Also, there are carcinogens in cheap dog food to preserve it longer. Lastly, after 10 years of being a "convert" (lol), I find my pets sooo much healthier! I have a 16 year old cat that is in great health, and a 13 year old Shepherd/Husky mix that you would think is 5 years younger. (You can look this info up on the internet - search something like "dog food tiers" or "what difference does my dog's food make?".)

Check out brands like Canidae, Merrick, Eagle Pack, Chicken Soup, and Evo.

And, of course, there's also the possibility of dry skin. The right food can also take care of that, plus don't give her too many baths. A slick coated dog like a Weimaraner can be wiped down with a cloth and some "dry shampoo" if needed.

Congratulations on your new baby!!! =)