There's some standardized scoring we can use. Colorado State Vet School came up with a pretty standard pain scale we tend to use for our surgical patients or our patients that come into the hospital. Sometimes it's as obvious as your pet comes in limping, and we know exactly what the pain source is, and we can gauge from there. But for those more subtle injuries, we want to go back to the dog’s original normal and make sure we're managing their pain well.

If you felt like you notice any of those symptoms or if your pet seems off, we would recommend having them checked out. We're big proponents of pain management here at Advanced Animal Care, and we want to make sure everybody stays comfortable. If you feel like there's anything that's not right, I would make a call and have them seen.

There's a whole slew of things. Maybe they stepped funny in the yard, and their paw hurts, or perhaps they got a little cut by a brush or a fence. Perhaps you have another dog at home, and they got in a tussle, and that could cause some pain. Maybe they ate something they shouldn't have, and their stomach hurts, and they have general abdominal pain. There's a whole lot under the sun that can sometimes make dogs uncomfortable.

Everybody thinks of the obvious ones; maybe your pet is limping, or they're favoring a leg. Perhaps they've got a minor cut on their side or something like that; perhaps they're licking it, nursing it, chewing on it. But some things can even be more subtle like maybe they're not eating as much as they used to, or they’re not eating at all. Maybe they're panting a lot, they're shifting a lot, or they can't seem to get comfortable. They're constantly getting up, turning around, laying down, but can't find that comfortable spot. Maybe they're just not acting themselves. Maybe their personality has changed a little bit, or they even seem a little lethargic. Those can all be signs your pet may be experiencing pain.

Depending on what your dog is sensitive to, regularly laundering their bed is wonderful. Many owners forget to wash their pets' beds, and sometimes that can be the source of the allergens that cause the allergic reaction. They say that skin cell turnover in dogs is about every 21 days, so veterinarian dermatologists recommend bathing your dog at least once a month, if not every three weeks. That can help a lot, too.

Sometimes if you notice them licking their feet, it can be just as simple as wiping off their feet with a wet washcloth right after they come in from outside. But there's a whole slew of things. Keeping the house clean, vacuumed, all of that good stuff, and keeping them on prevention, too, would be helpful. Once fleas get in your home, they're tough to get rid of.

Besides things like bathing therapies, the Omega-3 Fatty Acids in my mind would run into the holistic end of things. We don’t recommend applying essential oils or things like that directly to your pet because those can be pretty irritating to their skin. If you find a product that you may want to try, the best thing to do is call your veterinarian. Worst case scenario, they may find something in there that they say, "I'm not totally comfortable with this product, but maybe let's try this one."

It's something that you could try. I tend to tell most of my clients that I like Benadryl for those acute allergic reactions. You think about getting stung by a bee, or maybe you have a course of hives or something like that. I like Benadryl for those things, but we don't find that Benadryl tends to be as effective as some other things out there for long-term allergy management.

I do recommend Zyrtec to a lot of my patients, too. And that's something that owners can get inexpensively at the drug store or the pharmacy, which can help manage long-term allergies or maybe seasonal allergies. My dogs are on Zyrtec from March through October, but the best thing to do is get an appropriate dose for it from your veterinarian.