"My" street dog's skin problems

[Ash]

India has many, many street dogs. I could write many paragraphs about my experiences with them (treating them when sick), but I want to concentrate on one particluar dog who has reccurent skin problems.

Her name is Roni, she has been spayed by the Blue Cross (they catch-spay-release dogs), and is anything between 4 and 7 years old (I guess). I have known her for almost two years. She is one of the lucky street dogs who is allowed to sleep in the front garden or the stairs of a tailor's shop. The people there will feed her scraps, but will not pay for vet bills. At night she roams the streets, mixes with other street dogs and probably raids garbage bins, as they all do.

Since October 2003 she has had her skin problems which start on the lower part of her back, and then spread down to her hind legs and belly. If untreated she scratches almost non-stop, loses fur and develops open wounds (from scratching and biting). The first vet I took to see her treated her with ivermectin (and antibiotics for the open wounds) and repeated that after two weeks. She healed up fine, stopped scratching and her fur grew back. But after four months the problem started again. Again she got ivermectin and responded well to it. In October last year, 6 months later, it started again, and this time she did not respond to ivermectin injections, although the vet had taken a skin scraping and had said it is mange. Do the mites get immune to ivermectin? He suggested to wash her and apply a flea treatment. We (the tailor and I) tried to wash her but it was impossible to hold her. Street dogs are not as submissive as pets. However, I treated her with a spot-on flea treatment (imported form the US, can't remember the name), which got rid of the fleas but had only little effect on her scratching. It seemed that fleas had been a part of the problem but not the main one.

I then changed the vet and the new vet said it looks like scabies and prescribed a lotion to be applied twice a week. It's called Ascabiol and has Gamma Benzene Hexachloride I.P. 1% and Cetrimide I.P.1%. Since the beginning of February I have applied that lotion twice a week, and it helped. She stopped scratching and her fur came back. However, when I stopped the treatment in April (after two months of applying), the problem immediately started to flare up again. On advice of my vet, I continued the lotion and right now, I apply it once a week to keep the problem under control. Is it alright to continue this or will it effect inner organs over time?

Asking my vet, she suggested we could give her an intensive ivermectin treatment course, once a week over two months. Should I do that? She also said that with her lifestyle (probably sleeping in infested places, mixing with other dogs) and her weakened immune system it cannot be expected that she will ever become completely normal (as far as her skin is concerned). She said that street dogs adjust somewhat over time and all one can do is keep the disease within bounds so it doesn't get completely out of control.

Her best friend is another adorable little male dog with whom she plays a lot, but he never suffers from any skin problems. Are mange and scabies not terribly infectious?

She otherwise seems healthy - blood tests/blood drawing is not an option with street dogs. Injection, oral meds, lotions are okay.

Any ideas what other treatments could be helpful to her, keeping in mind that what I can do with her is limited.

[Traci]

Unfortunately, her outdoor/street environment will continue to subject her to the problems. As long as she is in that environment, the problems may never resolve.

I applaud you for trying to help and covering her vet expenses, but the ideal situation for clearing up the skin problems is to keep her isolated in which to treat effectively, give it a chance to heal. The problem may be continued treatment with the injections, when the likelihood of it resolving is slim, due to her environment and the circumstances. If it were possible your vet could keep her in a clinical environment (boarding) and isolated, the treatment would probably be more effective.

Mange requires an agressive treatment approach, whereas flea treatment can be done once a month (with the appropriate flea application treatment). Her situation doesn't exactly allow you to bathe her on a weekly basis for mange treatment, and to monitor the progress.

Do be careful about the applications you use for flea control....I would recommend Frontline or Advantage if it's available to you, but try to stay away from over-the-counter flea products, many are ineffective and can be dangerous for pets.

[Ash]

Yes, she is in an unfortunate situation, as are all the others. There are a handful of people who feed and treat street dogs - the vets usually give a discount for street dogs - but what can be done for them is very limited. And there are so MANY. My dream is to operate my own shelter, but I don't have the finances.

I would take her but my husband - and my two own dogs - don't want more animals, as we are already very busy with the ones we have.

I could inquire about boarding, just a bit worried about her running away and being lost in a strange part of town. She's a very stubborn and energetic girl!

So do you think we should do the prolonged ivermectin treatment once more, once a week over two months? And should I continue with the Ascabiol lotion or is prolonged use of it dangerous?

We do get Frontline and Advantage here (which I usually use) but not all the time. Last time I used a different product on her, also from the US.

[Traci]

So do you think we should do the prolonged ivermectin treatment once more, once a week over two months? And should I continue with the Ascabiol lotion or is prolonged use of it dangerous?

If she is constantly exposed to environmental conditions (i.e, the mange), the injections will probably be futile. An isolated environment would help by allowing the vet to give her weekly baths, dips, monitor her progress, provide a suitable diet while recovering, and able to apply topicals to the worst of the open sores.

Treatment should include weekly baths with an antiseborrheic shampoo, followed by a dip with 2% lime sulfur solution (or, i.e., Paramite dip). An ivermectin injection can be given two weeks apart, I would not advise weekly injections of ivermectin, they should be given two weeks apart. Combined with the baths and the dips, a two-week treatment plan should produce results (depending on the severity), but this should be in an isolated environment in order to expect the best results.

Also, your vet needs to try to determine the dog's breed, because collies, australian shepherds, shetland/old english sheepdogs and related breeds are susceptible to ivermectin toxicity.

We do get Frontline and Advantage here (which I usually use) but not all the time. Last time I used a different product on her, also from the US.

What is the product, name?

[Ash]

That will be very difficult to do here. I don't know of any vet who does such kind of boarding and supervised treatment. There are a couple of shelters/charities but they are so overcrowded (100s of dogs in cramped spaces) and only one vet and not enough money to even feed them properly ... *sigh* They are able to care for thier basic needs but nothing fancy. I sometimes bring really badly diseased dogs there, it's still better for them than on the street if they're really ill. But Roni is fine as long as I keep applying that lotion it seems. At least it's not getting too bad, no open wounds now, fur is back, if a little patchy. But if I'd stop the lotion it'll probably all start again. There are a couple of private smaller shelters, but they are expensive ...

I'm not even sure what exactly it is since it first responded to ivermectin and then didn't anymore. And then it responded to Scabies lotion. The symptoms look always the same though.

Breed, well, they call it 'jungly' here, means a mixed undetermined breed. She has had ivermectin before, she didn't show any toxic reaction.

I can't remember what that flea treatment was called, my vet at the time gave it to me. A small orange tube, was from the US, and I applied it on her neck and back. I have never seen it before or after in the pet shop where I normally buy the Frontline and Advantage.

[Ash]

I went to see Roni today. I didn't expect to her to look too good, because I had not gone for almost two weeks (I was not feeling well last week, and it was immensely hot here). In April I had once stopped applying the scabies lotion for 10 days and she had immediately started again to scratch and bite herself, losing fur etc. So today I expected something similar. To my total delight, it had not flared up again! She looked just like two weeks ago. The fur is still a little patchy in places, but the skin is all healed up, and she wasn't scratching! I was so glad! Maybe what my vet once said is true, that these street dogs often seem to adjust to a certain degree to skin diseases.

I put the lotion just in case, and I will continue to go and see her, she's such a sweetie anyway, I miss her if I don't go! I had brought some of that expensive dog food, my friend left me, for her and her little friend, and they both liked it.



Keeping my fingers crossed that this is the end of Roni and her skin problems!