Hello, <<First Name>>,

Just like humans, dogs can suffer from allergies.  Instead of watery eyes and runny noses, allergies in dogs manifest in scratching, licking feet or rubbing their faces on the carpet.  These behaviors can often result in secondary problems such as sores, skin infections, hair loss and hot spots.   Canine allergies come from a number of sources - primarily fleas, foods and environmental irritants such as pollen and dust mites.  We will look at each of these separately over the next few months. 

Flea Allergy Dermatitis
This is a very common allergy in dogs and is actually a reaction to the saliva of the flea. Because this allergy causes extreme itching, it often leads to the development of secondary skin infections.   Surprisingly most dogs with a flea allergy will have very few fleas.  They will groom themselves excessively trying to relieve the itching and in the process eliminate evidence of the fleas.  However, just a few flea bites over a week or two are sufficient to make a flea allergic dog itchy all the time.  
Symptoms of fleas allergies include:

• Severe itching
• Chewing and biting of the tail, rump, back legs and occasionally front legs
• Oozing lesions also known as lick granuloma.  These are caused by chewing.
• Hot spots on the hips or face.  These are severe skin damage from scratching.

Treatment
There are three key elements to treating flea allergy dermatitis.

• Most importantly, prevention of flea bites.  This will require aggressive flea control measure on both your dog and in the environment.
• Treatment of secondary skin infections. Antibiotics and anti-fungal drugs may be necessary to treat secondary skin infections triggered by the flea allergy. 
• You may also need to stop the itch cycle.  If your dog is suffering from extreme itching your Vet may need to prescribe steroids.