Our bitch has very bad grass allergies, to the point where she is now on a constant low dose of steroids (1/10 of a maintenance dose), and even with that, she is still often itchy and red and is fearful of wet grass. Interestingly several of the deerhounds I have met here in Aus also have grass allergies, despite the dermatologist specialist telling us it was quite rare.

Has anyone else had a deerhound with this problem, and if so, what did you do for it?

My hound dislikes walking in long grass and will obstinately refuse to go if I walk into it. He also gets a red rash on his belly if he goes in it. I'm not sure whether its the grass or nettles that he dislikes and that cause the rash although I suspect that it may be both.

Bree suffers with grass allergies. This year was worse than prior. I really didn't want to put her on prednisolone but next year I will if it flairs up. I had to get cortisone cream for her as she got some nasty sores from scratching. She likes to lie out in the sun and then go cool off in water which the vet said exacerbates it.
When in WA, our Dana also suffered with grass allergies and she was on cortisone meds which we weaned off in autumn and then started again in summer.
So for us that is 2 out of 4 DH's with the problem. I think it is more common that that vet thinks

I have made similar experiences - 2 out of my 4 dhs do have allergies during our very hot and dry summers ; they seem to be contact allergies , when the gras gets really dry ad prickly. I tried a whole lot of different things and for dh No1 all subsided once I found out , that she is also fairly allergic to " everything fish " - including fishoil , which I used to feed in summer , poor thing . Once I eliminated the foods she is allergic too , she doesn't show any signs of extra itchiness in summer any more . I do feed raw/homemade for the most part . I also do give homoeopathy during the summer ( Urtica and Sulfur in different potencies ) and I read in a few magazines/brochures that feeding raw , local honey in spring will help with allergies ( a bit like a nosode or vaccination , preparing the immunesystem for the onslaught) . Sometimes the dogs are just allergic to the grassmites that crawl up their legs - this will start showing in spring - a very easy " homerecipe " for this , given to me by a vet , can be to put flea/tick collars around their ankles ;they should also repell the grassmites . Which is fine for most breeds , but with dhs /sighthounds one has to be careful .
My 2nd girl has only mild allergies and also only when it is really hot and dry , once we get rain , she feels much better . She does get the homoeopathy and , currently ( as we are experiencing a drought ) 1 antihistamine/day ( vet recommended dosage for her : 2xdaily 3 pills ! ) . This is all she needs to stay happy. With her it is clearly not a grass mite allergy as she itches ay up the legs , where the seeds/heads of the dry grasses touch her - needless to say , I do stay on the paths when walkig in summer as to not encourage her to walk through the high stuff either.
One more note , the 2 are not realted , but the other 2 I have are closely related to one of each and do not show any signs of allergies ....


Verena

It is all very interesting, I wonder if it is something deerhounds are particularly prone to, that might explain why the vet seemed to think it was rare but a few of us have had experience with it? We will obviously have to wait to hear a few more reports, hopefully from people who have bred deerhounds ofr a long time, before we draw any conclusions. I would also be curious as to it's inheritance? We desexed our bitch predominantly for that reason as we wouldn't want to see any other dog go through what she does in summer!

Might try the honey idea!

A friend of mine has 1 dh from a long time breeder - this dh has/had terrible " summer allergies " , to the point of being bold on her feet and legs halfway up . Now , being on a different diet the allergies are no longer ( which is basically the same what happened to my Mahak , once I figured out what foods she was a bit allergic to , the
" extra allergies " in summer disappeared - and this 5 years into her history with them ) . Back to this friend , she did some research when it all started and found out , that it seems to run in lines , is , to a degree , inheritable . I have seen the same with one of my 2 allergic ones ,Mahak - in whose line /litter there are a few ones who are allergic to gras as well as certain foods . I , too , would not breed with a dog like her , though somewhat more managable than other " bigiies " in our breed , the dogs do suffer and , it is never good to have to be on constant medication ( imo ) .

Verena

This is very interesting both my pups Deerhound and GSD are on antibiotics
at the moment for contact Dermatitis and they are always running round the
orchard in wet grass, what does the rash look like?

I've recently read that spraying cider vinegar onto dogs is good for allergies and flees. There is a lot on the internet about this if you do a google search on "cider venegar"

Robb wrote:


Only problem is, the dog will spend the day licking it off !