Hotspots

[Kirsten]

Cole just popped up a hotspot last night.  I swear.  He'd never had one until this year when Frontline putzed out and stopped working.

So I clipped the hair in and around the spot, carefully cleaned and dried it, and applied Neosporin to the injured parts and hydrocortizone cream to the inflamed parts.

Anyone have any other tips/tricks for dealing with or preventing hotspots?

Grrr.  Just remembered.  I should have been giving him benedryl for the itching.  But seriously, how long can you keep a dog on Benedryl?  He's been itching off and on all summer long.

(Yes, he is treated for fleas, now with Advantage, which is working, so that is no longer the issue.)

[Spectrum]

Frontline's had a hard time keeping up this year - I don't know what the weather's been like where you are, but here it was a very mild, very wet summer, and the fleas are just horrible this year.

I use liquid Sulfodene topically on one of my parents' dogs that's prone to hotspots. It seems to help a little.  Chewing at it is usually what makes his worse. I'm using Betagen spray on a spot on my dog's head right now, but Betagen is only available from a veterinarian.  Sulfodene is available over-the-counter. Betagen is basically a topical antibiotic and a topical steroid.

[Kirsten]

Hmm.  Thanks for the tip.  An antibiotic and steroid combo could be a good solution.  I'll ask my vet about it.  I did talk to him about it the first time it happened this summer.  He asked me what I was doing about it and I told him, he suggested adding cortizone, and left it at that.  We have a very casual relationship left over from my farm kid days.

[BlindMag]

While fortunately none of my current babies has hot spots (so far, or that I know of) I've had a dog who had them before very badly, tried many things and what consistently worked for me was bathing with Neutrogena T-Gel human shampoo (or the generic version of this, that is tar based, I found was as good, both worked a lot better for me than tar based dog shampoos) and if that didn't do it we went and got a steroid shot.