Tis The Season - Vizlsa Allergies

Last Sunday Ralphie and I spent the day at my daughters house.  Ralphie just loves it there, not only he has crazy Bubba the Pug to play with, but he has a lot of space to run around...a nice big back yard.  He played hard...running and running and a little swimming.

After a full day of fun, we came home and I see he developed a lot of pimple-like bumps along his back.  Ralphie always has seasonal allergies that look like prickly heat with a loss of some hair, but this was different.  I was thinking it was just an extreme of seasonal allergies.  I bathed him and brushed him.  I decided to try to nurse this myself before going to the vet.  I've been to the vet numerous times and I seem to get speculation, that's about it.  So  I gave him a couple of Benadryls for a couple of days.  I didn't see any change.  I then gave him a couple of Zyrtecs.  Gosh, it seemed to be clear after one dosage.  I gave him a couple more tablets the next day.  It cleared!!   I believe he must of been bitten by a mosquito, horsefly, fire ant, or spider and had a bad reaction.

If you decide to use Zyrtec for your V's allergies, do not get the Zyrtec-D which contains pseudoepehedrine that is dangerous for our fur-babies.  Just purchase the plain Zyrtec that only contains cetirizine.  The dosage is .5 mg per pound every 24 hours.  So Ralphie at 70 pounds should have 35 mg.  However, I only gave him 2 tablets which was 20 mg.  I'm always afraid to over-medicate.  That's just me.  I used it for two days and it worked wonders!

Bumps....

...and more bumps!