Hello everyone. I'm alittle worried about my dog. She's an 8yr. old
spayed female doberman mix. We adopted her from a shelter when she
was 2. She does ALOT of scratching, rubbing her eyes, licking her
paws, etc. ...all the symptoms of what I read about as being
allergies. She also is prone to ear problems, where the inside of the
ear flaps would get very red; vet said that's probably part of an
allergy problem. He instucted me to clean her ears out w/ this
solution and then put some medicated drops in there. That remedy
never really solved the problem. I decided to give an aromatherapy
remedy a try; I forget offhand the exact oils mixed into olive
oil...tea tree oil, lavender, chamomile, I think? Anyway this worked
miracles! She's back to scratching at her ears & I'll have to get out
the aromatherapy cure again. I also started her on "VitaCaps" which
is the essential fatty acids (I've also been giving her brewers yeast
w/ garlic powder for years now). It seems to help. OK, but her
scratching is not the worrying problem now. The problem is I believe
w/ her digestive tract. She's been passing ALOT of foul gas and when
she burps, the smell is SO horrible I actually throw up. She once
threw up something that had the same horrible smell. Thank God dh was
there to clean it up (he was gagging from the foul smell also) as I
just couldn't while going through morning sickness. This does not
seem normal. I was wondering if maybe giving her acidophilus might
help or if she really has a more serious condition. Also, on occasion
she will go through some gasping and a kind of coughing & I'm
wondering if that means heartworms or something. I KNOW I need to see
my vet but that is another MAJOR problem. I feel like he just keeps
on stringing us along in treating her maybe to collect more money out
of us. In other words, he'll treat ONE thing and charge a huge fee &
then have us come back to treat another thing so he can charge
another separate office visit fee. This really makes me angry. The
last time I made an appt. w/ the vet, I SPECIFICALLY requested a
COMPLETE physical. He took her from us to another room and I guess
just examined her, gave her a few shots and then presented us w/ a
huge bill. I asked him if he checked for worms, especially
heartworms. He says no, make another appt. for that. I know my dog
needs a vet checkup about these symptoms she's having, but I can't
afford another visit where he does absolutely nothing and I have to
pay out lots of money. ..........SO - does anyone know if these
symptoms sound like anything familiar? If it's nothing serious, what
kind of natural treatments could I try (like the acidophilus,
maybe?)? And does anyone have advice on how to find a really good
HONEST vet? How do you screen out the money-hungry thieves & find a
vet who is truely honest? Well, TIA for any advice anyone can give.
Hope all of you & your furries are well!

-Alexandra