My dog scratches his neck and shakes his head, but his ears are clean. Why?

Question

For the past couple of days my dog has been scratching his throat vigorously and last night he kept shaking his head as if something is in his ears. I checked the ears and they’re totally clean and checked skin ariund the neck and can’t see anything that could cause the continuous scratching. Pet's info: Dog | Golden Retriever | Male | unneutered | 8 months and 1 day old | 85 lbs

Dr. Massimo Orioles, DVM, Cert AVP, MRCVS · Accepted Answer

Hi, and thanks for your question. Persistent scratching could be due to an allergy, although it could also be infection or mites. First of all, in order to rule out skin parasites, you will need to treat with a high quality flea treatment, then ask the vet to perform a skin scrape - this might reveal an infection or a mite infestation. If all of those came back negative, the next step is to treat the allergy symptomatically and try to discover the cause of the allergy. Three main type of allergies are usually affecting pets: food allergies, flea and parasite related ones and environmental type (allergens coming from trees, pollens, dust etc etc). Some medications can be given by the vet in order to repair any possible skin lesions (like steroids and antibiotics). The following products can be found online and can be tried as a first line approach: Douxo PS Calm shampoo, Essential 6 spot on by dermoscent, Krillex Krill oil chews.

My dog scratches his neck and shakes his head, but his ears are clean. Why?

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