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.

There are some tests that we have for allergies in dogs. When I think of dog allergy testing, I think about skin testing, which is done with little injections put all over their bodies by a dermatologist. We often send dogs for testing by a dermatologist to get a diagnosis. We also do blood tests. They're done less frequently than skin testing. We also have dog allergies that are related to food, so we'll do some tests through food trials.

People with allergies typically get upper respiratory symptoms and ocular issues, like itchy, watery eyes, runny noses, congestion, coughing, sneezing, and maybe some asthma in the lungs. Those are common areas of allergies in people. Dogs can also have respiratory and ocular allergies, but they more often get dermatologic or skin presentations, like itchiness, licking their feet, licking their bottoms, itchy armpits, and rubbing their faces. But feet licking is one of the more common areas of allergy presentation in dogs.