Let me say this up front, I am not a veterinarian. We value the veterinary profession and very much rely upon our veterinarian. We are Havanese owners of over 20 years. We have a a lot of experience with the breed. We have made many ‘mistakes’ along the way in my learning journey with the breed. We are not giving professional medical advice, we are simply giving some ideas of how to brain storm if you think you may be dealing with allergies.
Allergies are an issue in the Havanese breed. There may be food allergies or environmental allergies, just like humans. While there are many different takes on this issue… this is my take on it. This is my experience with it for over 20 years.
Our very first Havanese and her offspring had an array of allergies, some genetic and some due to our learning curve with the breed and not feeding her an appropriate diet (see the dog food post for more on this). Allergies certainly are not fun. Due to not wanting to reproduce allergies and have families have to deal with this, we decided not to carry on our original line and sought after lines which do not have allergies. We have not dealt with allergies since.
Now you may think this is impossible, however, we use a very specific manner in which we raise our dogs, and if we stick with it, we do not have any issues. The quality of a product greatly affects the health of the user. Some products are simply better than others. This is what works for us. We are sharing in case you may want to try what has been working for us for over 20 years.
BATHE: The very first thing we would suggest is bathe your dog. Bathe your dog often. Imagine how itchy your head gets when you do not shower and wash it. Well your pup is the same. Now imagine how itchy your head gets when you use a shampoo which is drying or too fragranced, well your pup is the same. We recommend you start with making sure your pup is tangle free. Then start bathing and blow drying your pup every 1-2 weeks. Yes, every 1-2 weeks. If your pup has been outside a lot, every week is best to wash all the grass, weeds, pollen, dirt off of them. No, if you are using a product properly formulated, your pup will not dry out and get itchy. Exactly the opposite will happen, your pup will have healthy skin and coat. It’s important to blow dry as the wave in the Havanese coat can start to twist together which will make your grooming more difficult as you try to keep the tangles away, but is also uncomfortable for your pup. Imagine how tangles in your own hair would pull and be uncomfortable.
We recommend you use Chris Christensen Spectrum 10 Shampoo and Conditioner. We have been using this for over 20 years and our dogs coats are beautiful, silky, and their skin is never dry. We have tried others and always come back to this. If you are dealing with skin irritations, we would start with using Mane N Tail Pro-tect antimicrobial medicated shampoo. We have found that this shampoo actually works to help heal skin from fungal, yeast, and bacterial issues. If your dog has a serious skin issue see your veterinarian. If they have some yeasty itchiness, this may work well for you to begin the skin healing process. This shampoo requires leaving it on for about 10 minutes. Rinse thoroughly. Always follow up with the Spectrum 10 conditioner and rinse well. Rinse paws well also. Blow dry completely.
If you can buy the dog shampoo/conditioner at a local store, almost guaranteed it is going to be drying to a Havanese coat. If you MUST use something from a local store, use the Mane N Tail products or get the Suave Moroccan oil shampoo and conditioner from the human department (this has a bit more fragrance but seems to be well tolerated in a pinch). For the long run we recommend the Chris Christensen Spectrum 10, it is hands down the best we have tried and is dilutable, so the bottle will last a long time.
EARS: We always use TrizULTRA + Keto ear rinse after every bath. This helps keep the ear ph balanced after getting water in the ear. No matter how hard you try, moisture always gets in the ear. Use this in both ears after every bath. Put some in the ear, lift up on the ear to open the ear canal and rub it down into the ear canal. Works like a charm to help keep yeasty ears away. Breeds, like the Havanese, who have drop ears do not get air flow into the ear canal and if that water just sits in there it will develop yeast and/or bacterial infections. This is a much better solutions
FOOD: Our dogs do best on Pro Plan. Having a food which is tested and proven to provide a balanced and healthy diet is the first important thing on the list. We have fed all varieties of Pro Plan except the Sport 30/20 as that has too much protein for a lazy little Havanese. Our vet prefers we stick with 26-28%. Our favorite is the sensitive skin and stomach line. This has no wheat, corn, soy (all of which I am personally allergic to) and no chicken. It is just preference, all the varieties are just as good, but our dogs love the salmon. It has great value in the fish oils for their skin and coat. So if you think you are having some issues, We would change to Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach, there is a puppy variety (which is all life stages), a regular variety, a small breed variety and a large breed variety which obviously is not relevant to a Havanese. We have fed all of these but prefer the puppy or small breed due to the smaller kibble size, however, the regular variety is easily consumed by a Havanese.
Purina One has a skin and coat formula, however, we like the Pro Plan much better, but if your budget won’t accommodate the Pro Plan, this would be my next suggestion. Your pup should be able to tolerate any of the well balanced formulas of Pro Plan, Purina One or Royal Canin, however, this blog is specific for those who are thinking they may be dealing with sensitivities.
GROOMING: Always make sure your dog is tangle free. Tangles hide near the skin, they are generally not on the surface. If your dog has a long coat, this is going to require you take a rounded tooth comb (so it doesn’t scratch) and comb all the way to the skin. Do this in ‘lines’ to assure you don’t miss anything. Don’t just start at the back and comb down. This will not do a complete job and it is more uncomfortable for your pup and harder for you. Start at the stomach and comb down, take the next ‘line’ and comb down, and repeat this until you have done each ‘line’ until you have reached the back. It’s easiest doing this on the dogs side, but can be done standing up or laying on your lap. I do my dogs laying on my lap. Do both sides. Do the legs from feet to top. Do the chest and rear from bottom up also. Do their ears, top of head and beard. Depending on the dog you should likely only need to do this once a week unless you are going through coat change around 8-15 months old. Each dog handles coat change differently and many families choose to just trim them down very short during this time. The shorter the coat the less you need to comb/brush them.
We like the Chris Christensen dematting brush as a good everyday brush and use this before and after my dogs bath. They are in puppy cuts now. We like the Chris Christensen small slicker brush for tangles. We bathe our dogs every 2 weeks unless we are outside a lot, then they get a bath every week. We love clean dogs and they love being clean. It is essential to shampoo, condition, blow dry. It is essential to make sure you get all tangles out. Dirty and tangled hair is itchy and can even hurt.
TREATS: Stop all extra treats. Use part of the daily portion of kibble as a treat or use cheerios. Cheerios are tiny, have few calories and are pretty ‘allergy’ agreeable as they are oats not wheat. A little bit of green beans could also be used, but don’t overdo it. The pre-packaged dog treats often have a lot of garbage in them and/or are very high in calories. There is no need to use these, especially if your dog is having some sensitivities.
Our guess is that if you start following these recommendations you will find your dog starts to itch a lot less. It may take some time for your dogs skin to heal from the previous assault, so give it time. Changing food you may find things get worse before they get better, as your dogs system has to get rid of all the previous damage by the previous food. This can take about 3 months before you will even begin seeing any change for the better. So give it time, lots of time, about 6 months. Proper nutrition takes time to heal the system.
ENVIRONMENT: Do not forget about environmental issues. What products are you using in your home for cleaning? It is best to use something gentle and with low fragrance for humans and for pets. Vinegar is a wonderful cleaner. If you like air fresheners, Glade is the only one which is deemed non-toxic, all the others contain ingredients which are bad for humans and pets and you both may react. We only like the Glade Hawaiian Breeze or Berry fragrance, the rest are way too strong for our preference. The Hawaiian Breeze is our favorite as it is very light and just adds a little freshness to areas like the bathroom.
Consider things like treatments on the yard, grass in general, weeds, etc. Just like they can irritate your skin, they can irritate your pets skin also. After being outside wipe their paws off. Getting pollen on the skin is itchy. If you are out a lot, bathe every week, especially in spring when the pollen counts are so high. Just like you can see the pollen on your car, it gets on your pet and they will appreciate you washing them, just like you do your car.
FLEA/TICK treatments: You need to consider what you are putting INSIDE your pets body. Many of these can cause all sorts of reactions in your pet. Over time, this adds up in their body and the symptoms may come on slowly over time. Next thing you know you are seeing allergies and other health issues in your pet. We do not recommend any oral flea/tick medications. If you need flea/tick treatment, we recommend only using it during the season of fleas/ticks and not year around and only using a topical treatment, which does not enter your pups blood stream and can be washed off if you have a reaction. Reactions are far less with topicals. Make sure to ONLY purchase these medications from a reliable source like your vet, chewy, or a pharmacy, NOT from Amazon. We love Amazon for many things, but there are so many ‘fakes’ we would never risk the life of my pet to save a few bucks. Frontline or Revolution would be our pick, and we would buy the name brand, not a generic. The health of our pet is our primary concern. If there is not a flea/tick issue, we would not use these. Use in limitation, only as needed, not simply as a monthly, year around ‘preventive’. No need to ‘prevent’ if you don’t actually have any issues in your area. We only use them IF we are finding fleas/ticks on our dog.
VACCINATIONS: Over vaccination takes a toll on your pets immune system. If your pet has immunity, you can’t make it ‘more immune’. So the vaccine which is designed to provide immunity to dog diseases (which is necessary) is not simply reaking havoc on your pets immune system. You are injecting chemicals and illness into your pet, which requires your pets immune system to kick into high gear and figure out how to handle this. It takes its toll. We highly recommend doing titers instead of re-vaccinating once all puppy vaccinations are complete. We recommend the distemper/parvo vaccine as a puppy vaccine. We do not recommend lepto for puppies. We do not recommend lept be given as part of a combination vaccine. If, and only if, you live in an area of high risk for lepto, and the variety of lepto in your area is covered in the lepto vaccine then we would recommend giving it at least a month separate from all other vaccines, give Benadryl, and watch your pet carefully. We recommend a mercury free rabies vaccine. We do not recommend any other vaccinations. Again, this is from our perspective, we are not veterinarians and of course recommend you discuss this with your veterinarian. We HIGHLY encourage titer test instead of revaccination. Too many vaccinations affects the immune system in negative ways and can thus can potentially lead to allergies.
TEMPORARY solutions would be to try Benadryl or other allergy medications to help get your pup over the ‘hump’. If your pup is this bad, talk with your vet about this and what the dosage would be. We would not personally recommend any of the prescription allergy treatments including pills and injections, as they have a very long list of side effects including REDUCING the immune system. We do not think it is healthy to stop the immune system. But, we are not a veterinarian and this is just my opinion.
PRESCRIPTION FOOD: If necessary you may want to try a prescription food to reset your dogs system. These foods are designed to be used for many different things, such as allergies or intestinal issues. Purina HA or Royal Canin HA are both excellent foods which can help your pet reset their system. They are very easy to digest, yet they are also fully tested and proven to be well balanced and complete nutrition for your pet. You may want to talk to your vet about a trial of this food if the above doesn’t work, but again, I would give this 6 months trial to see if the change in diet, groom, reducing chemicals in the body, etc will be just what your pet needs.
Disclaimer: All of the information contained here is personal preference and not intended as professional medical/veterinary advice. Please talk with our vet and determine what is best for your pet. If you don’t like our advice, simply ignore it and find the information you can align with. If you don’t like the advice of your vet, remember you are your pets advocate and you have the freedom to find a vet in which your thoughts more align. We hope these suggestions help your pet recover from the itchies. Having an itchy pet is no fun and we understand the need to try to help them be as healthy and happy as possible. This is what works for us, so we thought it might be useful for someone else to try. Always seek professional medical/veterinary advice as needed.
Note: We are not getting paid by any of these products, we are simply letting you know what works best for our family. We think our dogs deserve the best and the best isn’t always what the ‘advertisements’ tell us is the best, the best is what is working best for our dogs. Every time we change products, we soon find our dogs are not doing as well as they did on these, so we always go back to our tried and true. We have been using these products over 20 years and our dogs always thrive doing things this way. We have finally learned, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Have a great day!
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