Yes, unfortunately, because we have such beautiful weather here and we have a warmer climate, and that's why most people like to come and visit us and stay here. We do have fleas and ticks all year round. So yes, the preventatives are needed.

Some people claim that the topical preventatives don't work as well anymore because they've been on the market for so many years that the fleas may have become resistant to them. People love the oral ones because it's really easy to give with food. You give them a chewable tablet, so you give them like a treat, and dogs do really well with them. The side effects are less too.

Things within the environment that will cause allergies can be smoke. So if you're a smoker, you might want to consider going outside to smoke because the smoke will pollute and cause allergies and upper respiratory issues in pets. We see increases in dust pollen or dust mites from not vacuuming or having a lot of fabrics that need to be washed, so more frequent vacuuming can help. Don't forget to vacuum your furniture and your fabrics. Change your bedding over more frequently, especially if your pet sleeps with you. Perfumes and aerosolization candles can cause allergies. Those also release things within the air that can affect pets with allergies and make them worse. When you think about your environment and ways that you can help, whole house HEPA filters are also wonderful and even the standalone room ones. Change those litter boxes over and over, especially for cats with allergies. Again, talking with your veterinarian about your environment can show you things you can do to help reduce allergens at home.

Holistic, for me, means more natural. What's more natural than just bathing your pet and using shampoo therapy to get off allergens. That's a very holistic approach. There are some topical treatments that can be used. You can find anti-itch sprays over the counter and herbal products. Shampooing can often be helpful. Some of the topical treatments, like topical antihistamines, a low corticosteroid, or even some tea tree, can help, but they aren't really that effective. It often takes your veterinarian to help get rid of that allergic itch and help them feel a lot better, faster.

Benadryl is safe for pets. It is not uncommon for a pet parent to just get some over-the-counter Benadryl and try it on their pet. There is a very tiny subset of pets that have mild allergies, and Benadryl can help them, especially if they have some upper respiratory symptoms. When it comes to dermatologic or skin itchiness, Benadryl is often not going to help your pet at all. It's not going to really harm them, but it's unlikely to help them.

That's a big question. When I think of medications, I think of just simple antihistamines. Some over-the-counter Benadryl can be used, but it's often not very successful at helping reduce the symptoms. We also have a barrage of oral medications that have been developed for dogs and some injection therapy. We have a lot of hyposensitization treatments through a dermatologist. As far as food allergy goes, there are some wonderful diets that have been created that help us help your pet with food allergies. We'll often prescribe one of those diets for your pet. We have what we call a big toolbox of tools that we can use to help your pet feel better.

Flea bites often go undetected by pet parents because pet parents don't always see those fleas. We know there are some common areas that they'll become affected, so if a dog has a flea bite allergy, they'll often get itchy over their rump, the back of their lower spines, tails, their thighs, and they'll get itchy ears. We look for those areas of itch. Oftentimes we'll spread the hair and really look at the skin, and we may see a flea running by. With a dark-haired pet, it's a little harder. We might use flea combs to find those fleas. We'll ask what type of flea and tick prevention your pet is on, and that will tell us if you're using a good product if you're applying it correctly, and how often are you applying it? If you're not applying anything or giving anything orally, then flea allergy is going to be on our list for what's causing your pet to be itchy.

It depends on the allergy. If we have a seasonal allergy sufferer, so environmental allergies, we'll often start treating them the day that we suspect they have that disease. Hopefully, if your dog is allergenic to things in the environment, we'll be able to get some relief for them within one to two days, sometimes within hours after we start our treatment. If it's a food allergy, it can often maybe a couple of months to see full results for those patients.

It depends on what tests we do. If we're doing the injection test with allergens, you'll often have that diagnosis that same day of what the dog's allergens are. If we're doing a blood test, that may take us maybe a couple of weeks to get the results back. If we're doing a food trial, we often won't get results for eight to 12 weeks.