Our Sheltie, Godrick, began chewing his paws, feet and legs in early 2007. His skin turned bright red, puffy, and began flaking off. He quickly developed weeping sores and began to lose large patches of hair. 

We took him to our vet and she took tissue and blood samples. She checked for yeast, microbes, mites, and every other suspected cause. Every test came up negative. She prescribed a three-week regimen of the oral steroid Prednisone along with a medicated shampoo containing an antibiotic. The Prednisone relieved some redness, but not much. The medicated shampoo didn’t do anything. The vet bill came to $490.

As soon as we finished the Prednisone, the symptoms came back worse than ever. Godrick’s skin turned a deeper reddish purple color and began to crack and bleed. The hair loss spread farther up his legs and he began to lose hair around his eyes, nose and lips. He also began to develop bleeding sores on his stomach, chest and chin.

We purchased every product we could find at the pet shop and on the Internet. We spent somewhere around $100 in various treatments, medicated ointments, shampoos, and anything else we thought might help. Nothing worked. By the way, absolutely do not ever use cortisone on your dog for itching. They will lick it off and ingest it. Cortisone causes intestinal bleeding and colitis and can cause your dog to bleed to death if they ingest enough of it.

We began researching skin and hair loss in dogs and found that Sheltie’s have a genetic disorder known as Sheltie Skin Syndrome or Dermatomyositis. DM is incurable, but in some cases, symptom relief can be achieved with long-term steroid use, vitamin E applied to the skin and taken orally, and in some cases fish oil added to the diet. According to our sources, including breeders, web sites and several vets that specialized in Dermatomyositis, these treatments offer varying degrees of success or none, and there were conflicting opinions on whether steroids should be used at all because of side effects. Another possible source of hair loss and skin problems in Shelties is hypothyroidism, and it was recommended to check for thyroid hormone blood levels to determine if this might be the case.

At this point, we contacted a new veterinarian, who took extraordinary interest and sympathy. In addition to more blood work to check thyroid levels, he took two punch biopsies of Godrick’s skin to test for DM. He sent the tissue samples to a pathologist for a second opinion. They both determined Godrick did not have DM and his thyroid levels were consistent with the levels a Sheltie should have. Both doctors were convinced by the cell structure of the skin tissue samples that it was an allergic reaction to something either inhaled or ingested. The vet gave Godrick an injection of a long-acting steroid called Depo Medrol, along with a two-week supply of Simplicef, an antibiotic to help heal what had now become a secondary bacterial skin infection. Despite the fact that he didn’t even charge us for some of the biopsies and collaboration the pathologist, the bill came to $412.

There was some improvement, but once again, as soon as the medications ran their course his skin began to get worse and within a few weeks, he appeared to be right back where he started: highly inflamed, bright red, flaky, cracked and bleeding skin with no hair at all. His once brilliant white, fluffy, furry paws looked like chicken feet oozing yellow fluid and blood onto our bed sheets and the down comforter he slept on with his two brothers, Sammy and Eddie, and us.

We changed to a low-carbohydrate, high protein, all-natural food with no additives, corn, wheat or any ingredients known to cause allergies in dogs. The food had many beneficial effects but his skin problems remained the same.

We had now spent around a thousand dollars and months of frustrating attempts to help our dog, but it seemed we had achieved nothing.

After much research, talking with our vet and experimentation, we began to develop our own treatment by using topical ingredients we had read and heard about from a wide variety of sources. We tested different ingredients applied by themselves and in combination with others. Because dogs have four legs, we were able to test individual substances on different legs at the same time and compare results. For instance, vitamin E had an immediate and obvious effect on wound healing and new tissue growth, but without the addition of petroleum jelly to the new skin, the area would become dry and flaky in a just a few days. Flaxseed oil also helped new skin growth, but increased Godrick’s itchiness and general level of restlessness so we decided to discontinue its use. Many things we had read about actually made things worse. Coconut oil, safflower oil and shea butter all made his skin more red and irritated. Colloidal oatmeal, also known as Avena sativa L., is found in many human skin products, but when we used it on Godrick, it dried out his skin so quickly that in one night, he developed deep cracks and large, hard flakes of skin came off like corn flakes.

One thing we found is that dog skin and human skin are very different, and what might be good for human skin may have the opposite effect in dogs.

By trial and error, and careful observation, we kept only those ingredients that had a positive effect and eliminated anything that caused unwanted or adverse side effects. There are many claims made about many herbal, botanical, and natural remedies, so we tested each for ourselves and watched not only Godrick’s skin, but his behavior for signs of improvement. Everything we kept in our list of ingredients had obvious, overnight positive benefits and we left out anything that was questionable for any reason. 

We ended up with a salve that we applied at night before Godrick went to bed. In the morning, the results were so dramatic we continued to use our concoction at a frequency of about every third night. Within a few days, all the ulcerated lesions had not only stopped bleeding, they were completely healed and peach fuzz began growing in most of the hairless areas. Within two weeks, his skin color had returned to its normal light pinkish gray and the inflammation had disappeared. He no longer chewed and licked his legs and paws and he slept comfortably throughout the night.

We also didn’t want Godrick to continue to chew his paws so his skin would have time to heal. After several attempts to wrap his legs in gauze, which he quickly and easily removed by chewing at the paper tape that held it on, we tried baby socks with tape wrapped around them at the top. He easily removed them as well. After that, we tried several brands of dog booties from the pet store and various web sites. He pulled them all right off within minutes or they just fell off on their own.