How my dog survived Mange
My dog developed Demodectic Mange when he was only 6 months old.
At first, the vets will only say it was just "hot spots", but the "spots" didn't go away. See the bloody spot on his neck? and he also had many bald spaces on his legs, neck, and tummy. The vet at this point didn't reccomend any treatment whatsoever.
He kept getting worse and worse. He got many bloody and bald spots, was itching and scratching all the time. The skin turned black and the smell was awfull. I took him to another vet, and he diagnosed demodectic mange through skin scrapings. He recomended Mitaban dips. I took him to the groomer my vet recomended. He was under the dip treatment for 6 months with no improvement. The vet then recomended ivermectin pills daily. Not only it was a costly treatment, giving my dog a pill every day was a real pain! He doesn't eat the pills rolled in cheese, he licks the cheese and leaves the pill, so I had to pill him manually. There was no improvement, either. By this time I was desperate and broke. Many people were suggestig to put him down, but I wasn't willing to give up yet. I told the vet I was going to change groomer and that he could sell me the Mitaban dips, which he did. Now the fun starts.
First step: shaving him completely. He didn't have much hair left at this point, so it wasn't too difficult.
Here you can have an idea of how bad he was. Every black spot was a bald, bloody, and smelly spot. Skin was hard and in some parts it was infected. He will chew so much on his paws, they were swollen.
I decided to dip him myself. I would bathe him with normal dog shampoo before the dippings. I got a small kiddy pool and followed the instructions on the bottle: 2 gallons of water per bottle every other week. I would take a sponge and rub it on him for about 2 to 2.5 hours. I rubbed the sponge on him and poured some of the stuff down his ears. I squeezed the sponge between his toes, back of his paw, etc. I softly rubbed the sponge on his face, especially his muzzle. He hated it, but I kept telling myself it was for his own good.
The change was almost inmediate. The hair started growing on most of his body, but there were parts that weren't improving at all, specially on his ears and paws. It was a problem, because he will then spread the left over mange all over his body and the cycle would start again. As desperate as I was, I took half of one of the Mitaban bottles and mixed it with a small bottle of baby oil and put oil on his paws, specially between his toes, and on his ear lobes.
Soon enough, all his body was covered with short, soft fur. SUCCESS!!!! He wasn't scratching at all, and the smell was gone!!! The black spots that once felt really hard to the touch, were now soft.
Hair was growing back healthy. The vet was amazed of the quick improvement of Lobo after I "switched" groomers, and was even more amazed when I confessed that I was the one that was dipping him.
Well, 2 years after that incident, I have a very happy and furry Chow. He has his own web page now. Last year he started scratching a little bit on the base of his tail, and I put some of my "magic oil" before it would get worse and it cleared inmediately. I'd never had any problems with mange whatsoever after that. Not even the normal "hot spots" that, according to my first vet, happens to every dog normally. I still have some oil left over, but haven't needed to use it, and hope I never will again.
THE END!! :-)
This is not to be used as a diagnosis. I put this web page only to encourage those people that have dogs suffering from mange that it can be cured and not to give up on their furbabies.
And if nothing helps, probably my idea of mixing oil and Mitaban can help.
Email me if you want with your comments or questions.