As far as giving the medication, there are many little helpful treats out there. There are pill pockets, the type that will mold around the treat. You can use cheese, peanut butter, marshmallows, or something like that to stuff the pill into. But you also may have to end up getting a pill popper or even popping it down your dog's throat if they are absolutely against taking it.

There are some that you can give. Things like Gabapentin and Tramadol do cross over and are pretty similar, but the dosing is different. Again, you want to make sure you contact your vet before giving any medications.

There are doggy NSAIDs, which are different from human NSAIDs. I do not recommend human NSAIDs, but if you have some dog NSAIDs approved for your dog and your dog's not on any other medications, they could be safe for your dog.

Many human medications don't cross over to dogs, and so you certainly want to call your veterinarian before you give your dog any human medications.

They do. Most of the time, it will be spring and fall, but some animals also have problems all year long. They will have those allergies just like whenever we have sinus infections, our watery eyes, a snotty nose, and possibly an ear infection that comes up, or they will be scratching their belly or chewing their paws.

Food allergies are relatively common. We'll go over the detailed history and see if your dog has had skin and ear issues before. Then we will also go over what the diet is typically for your dog. Usually, it's going to be based upon the history and then also doing a food trial. Switching your food around will not cause an instant change. It takes a good eight to 12 weeks for your dog to have all those proteins taken out of their system. We see if your dog will respond by switching your dog's food up using over-the-counter dog foods. That's generally not going to cut it. It's usually prescription-type dog food, and they have to be on this food trial for eight to 12 weeks solely before we can say definitively that your dog has a food allergy.

A contact allergy is whenever your dog touches something that they have an allergic reaction to. That can be something on the floor like if you used a particular cleaner or even just like in people, they can be allergic to certain laundry detergents. It's something they have touched that causes them to break out.

Most of the time, it's going to be scratching, shaking their head, and discomfort as far as their skin or ears go, and those areas will also have redness to them.

They are a lot more common than you would think. If your dog’s scratching is occasional, that's pretty normal, but your dog should not be scratching nonstop. That is not a normal thing. We see at least a couple of patients a day that will have some type of allergy that we diagnose.