Are you wondering how to care for your dog’s skin without causing irritation or dryness? In this ultimate pet bathing guide, host Janet Novotny King and board-certified veterinary dermatologist Dr. Alice Jeromin break down the science behind proper grooming. They explain when to use a specialized pet shampoo and how to navigate common issues like allergies and skin infections. You’ll learn when active ingredients like chlorhexidine, miconazole, and benzoyl peroxide are necessary, and why restoring the skin barrier with ceramide or phytosphingosine is critical for allergic dogs. Discover trusted veterinary brands like DOUXO, Virbac, Dechra, and VetriMax to keep your companion healthy and itch-free.
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Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care – Dr. Alice Jeromin
Celebrating Community and Evidence-Based Science
We’re so happy you’re here. We have a guest, and I’m very proud to say I’m related. This is my sister, Dr. Alice Novotny-Jeromin, a Cleveland, Ohio native. She is a graduate of a lot of colleges. Bowling Green State University, the University of Toledo Pharmacy Degree, and then her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the Ohio State University. We are both proud Buckeyes and graduates.
We thought it was time to answer some of your questions, which we get a lot of, about, “How do I bathe my pet? Do I bathe my pet? How often do I bathe my pet? Is it good for their skin? Is it bad for their skin? Do I need to use a hair product?” We’re here to answer all your questions. Dr. Alice, where do we start? My question is, I wash Libby because she gets stinky, oily, rolls, and things. It’s gross. We’re talking about dogs because it’s not going to happen with cats. Not my cats.
I always tell people, “You can bathe your cat, but will you live to tell about it?” We’ll talk about that in a minute. Thank you, Janet. Thanks for having me on. I want to congratulate the show’s guests, hosts, and production team because we are number one on Apple Podcasts in the pet category. We so appreciate you all for tuning in. We work hard to bring you evidence-based science information via interviews with veterinary specialists, so that you guys get the most up-to-date, evidence-based information, because there are a lot of myths and misinformation out there.
In this episode, we’re going to talk about shampoos, topicals, what’s good, and what’s not good. To answer your question, it depends. I hate those two words, but it depends. If your dog has allergies, you should be bathing them more frequently. The most common question I get is, “How often should I bathe my pet?” I hate to say the two words, it depends, but it does. Your Libby is a Golden Retriever. She has mild allergies. She occasionally licks her feet, correct?
No.
I thought she did.
She’s perfect.
The Truth About Human Shampoos on Pets
My two Goldens, one of which is very allergic, and then Gidget, the China rescue, isn’t. In a dog without any skin problems, only bathe as needed. We all get from our sebaceous oil glands, which dogs have all over their bodies. Some dogs get a little oily or a little waxy. That says to me, “Time to bathe.” We’ll talk about what to bathe in. Let’s talk about the dog. We’ll start with dogs that have no underlying skin problems, no bacterial infections, no ringworm, which we’ll talk about, and no underlying allergies.
Also, not recovering from surgery, right?
Exactly. I like a mild cleansing shampoo, something that’s not drying. We’ll talk about certain ingredients that are drying. People ask me, “What about baby shampoo?” The big thing is the skin pH, whether it’s acidic or basic, in the dog, it is a little different than human skin pH. Humans are a little more acidic. Cats are very acidic. That is theorized to be the reason why cats don’t get a lot of skin infections. Not only do they clean themselves all the time, but their skin pH is a little more toward the acid end, whereas dogs are a little more basic. It won’t hurt your dog to use baby shampoo.
Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care | SOP Ep. 123 – Dr. Alice Jeromin Share on XRemember, there’s no FDA-approved word for gentle or hypoallergenic, for that matter. I can make any soap and say it’s hypoallergenic. No one’s going to hold me to that. Dove has been found to be very gentle. It used to be Ivory. Remember the old commercial that Ivory floats? Ivory is not that gentle. Dove is probably the most gentle over-the-counter soap you can buy.
I’ll be honest. I’m a big Dove fan only because they do a lot of unscented products.
I know, and I like that. Why does something always have to smell? I like the smell of clean.
I agree.
A mild cleansing shampoo. Baby shampoo, I don’t mind. Dove, to me, is probably the most gentle that you can buy over the counter.
I do see oatmeal shampoos for dogs.
The Oatmeal Myth and Swimming
What’s interesting about oatmeal is that, as a pharmacist, I can tell you that with us, in humans, people who have allergies will do an oatmeal bath for themselves. If they didn’t rinse all that off, they got itchy. Then, I found out that in veterinary medicine, we’re making oatmeal shampoos and oatmeal leave-ons. I’m like, “I was told in human medicine that that needs to be rinsed off.” Oatmeal for the dog is very soothing, but rinse it off.
Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care | SOP Ep. 123 – Dr. Alice Jeromin Share on XThe other thing I’ve always been faced with is, “She must be itchy because I didn’t rinse her off.” A few dogs are not itchy because you didn’t rinse them off. We have a lot of leave-on products that have chlorhexidine in them, that have oatmeal base, and that have promoxine, which we’ll talk about as an anti-itch. There are a lot of leave-on products for pets that I don’t see causing itching because they’re “not rinsed off completely.”
I live near the ocean, so she goes for a swim. She could also go swimming in a lake. I know I have to rinse off after I go in, right?
At lakes with this hot weather, the algae blooms are horrible. Those can be toxic. I would not let my dog swim in a lake at this time of year. Algae blooms can kill a dog overnight. When your dog comes out of the pool or out of, God forbid, a lake, always rinse them off, and I would bathe them. I know you like Dawn.
I do because it cuts the grease, and it doesn’t hurt her skin. She’s very oily in here.
It’s an anti-grease shampoo. That’s why they show the ducklings in the oil spill. Dawn is pretty strong as a detergent. There are reports of some dogs reacting to Dawn. As a degreaser, it’s okay. You’ve got to be careful. Any shampoo that, if you bathe your dog or cat in it, and you don’t think they’re acting right after that, take baby shampoo or some mild shampoo and rinse them off. It’s pretty rare, but it can happen.
In dogs that go to the groomer, I’ve had it happen in a Miniature Schnauzer and a Golden Retriever, where they’re either clipped down, and that leaves the pores open. Even in a brand-new bottle of shampoo, they open it up, and there’s some bacterial contamination. It gets in those pores. Those dogs get fevers and get systemically ill. After your dog is groomed, if the next day or two, they’re not acting well, get them to the vet right away.
Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care | SOP Ep. 123 – Dr. Alice Jeromin Share on XIs it necessary to wash your dog? Do you have to? Mine gets stinky because she rolls and stuff.
Repairing the Allergic Skin Barrier
With my own two, I only bathe them when they need to be bathed. If I notice I’m petting them and they’re a little waxy, I’m like, “Time for a bath.” Let’s talk about dogs that have underlying allergies. Here are a couple of reasons to bathe them and what products to look for. You want to bathe them or rinse them to get the pollen off of them. They’re licking it and absorbing it across the skin.
When you’re a dog, a human, or a cat, and you’re allergic. Your skin has a barrier. That barrier, genetically, is not normal. We want to pick a shampoo to try to repair that barrier. If the barrier’s abnormal, so what? You absorb allergens across the skin better if your barrier is dysfunctional. We want to look for products like ceramides and something long called phytosphingosines. They are the first step to make ceramides.
Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care | SOP Ep. 123 – Dr. Alice Jeromin Share on XWe also want to look for cholesterol and fatty acids. All four will restore that barrier function to the skin to keep out the bad stuff. We want to look for that in an allergic dog in various shampoos. Let me name four good shampoo companies. VetriMax, which we’ve had as a sponsor on the show. We’ll talk about their sodium hypochlorite shampoo. DOUXO, Virbac, and Dechra. Those are four good allergy shampoo companies that make very good products.
I bathe my dog. What if I use a topical tick or heartworm medicine? Now what?
You should not bathe your dog for at least 48 hours after you apply a topical. That’s why we have so many nice, effective, oral-safe products. That’s a very good point. You shouldn’t even let them swim. Some of those products say, “Don’t swim for 24 hours.” Some say, “Don’t swim for a couple of hours.” I’m thinking, “I want to get the full use of that product,” so I’m not going to let him go in the water for 48 hours.
When I get Libby groomed and they bathe her, they will say, “When did you last use the topical?”
I like that. That’s very responsible.
We don’t use topical. We use oral. I like it. I think that’s great.
I like that they ask you that.
They ask if they’re vicious. I’m like, “No. She’s a Golden. She loves everybody.” You have a new puppy. When do you start bathing that puppy?
I love the puppy smell. You know that I volunteer with a lot of rescues. The first thing we do when we bring these dogs in is they get bathed because you don’t know what they’ve got. They could have lice.
They could contaminate each other.
Targeting Bacteria and Yeast with Medicated Ingredients
I use a gentle shampoo, either baby shampoo or another. In dogs that come with infection, we’ve got bacterial infection or yeast infection. Let’s talk bacteria first. With bacterial infection, you can have little white pustules or little rings that have white around them. People think that’s ringworm, but that’s bacterial. The names of ingredients you’re looking for a bacterial infection are chlorhexidine, anywhere from 1% to 3%, miconazole, which also can work against yeast, and sodium hypochlorite, which I mentioned, VetriMax before. Sodium hypochlorite is the ingredient we find in bleach.
Don’t use bleach.
There is a dilution of bleach that you can use. It’s called Dakin’s solution. It was used in World War II to dress wounds. We used to make it up at the hospital pharmacy to dress wounds. If you go to my website, PurrfectPet.com, the recipe is there. It’s 1 to 3 tablespoons of bleach in a gallon of water.
That’s pretty dilute.
You make it up every day because it’s not stable for long. You can use it as a bath or a leave-on. It’s interesting. They did work with that in humans. It puffed up your keratinocytes. With your rosacea, they found that it worked for rosacea as well. The other ingredient that’s a little stronger is called benzoyl peroxide. You might recognize that with acne for kids.
You don’t want to use over-the-counter human benzoyl peroxide for dogs. It’s too strong. Once you hit that 3%, that’s what’s used in people. Benzoyl peroxide is very good at flushing out the pores, but it can be drying. You’re looking for either chlorhexidine, miconazole, benzoyl peroxide, or sodium hypochlorite for bacterial skin infections in your dog. What about the yeasty dogs?
We’ve got to talk about the yeasty dogs.
Our older sister Penny loves Basset Hounds. They’re very seborrheic, oily, and smelly. That is usually yeast. The chlorhexidine can again work. Miconazole can work. Also, Ketoconazole and Nizoral. They make ketoconazole for pets. Over-the-counter human Nizoral shampoo that is 1% is very effective, and so is the plain Selsun Blue. Selenium sulfide. Speaking of over-the-counter, there are shampoos you don’t want to use on pets.
That was my question.
Those would be coal tar shampoo. Never use that on a cat. Never use human anti-dandruff shampoos on a cat, or parabens, or sulfates. Those are out. They’re toxic to cats. Most cat owners don’t bathe their cats, but for those that do, I like a mild, non-medicated shampoo. When you see a shampoo that says medicated, what does that mean? You have to look for the ingredients.
Should you bathe your cat? There’s no way I’m going to bathe my two cats. They’re so clean. They tend to be very clean.
I had clients who would bathe their cats. Probably 1% of my 15,000 clients would bathe their cat. You don’t have to. There is a leave-on mousse that they’re making, like the climbazole mousse, which is an anti-fungal. We would have them bathe the cat if the cat had ringworm in chlorhexidine or miconazole shampoo. That’s the main reason. Most cats, everyday cats that you and I have, don’t need to be bathed.
I turn the hose on to water the flowers, and they’re out of here.
They don’t like sprays. That’s why it’s nice they came up with mousses. You can put the mousse on your hand in another room and then pet the kitty. Remember, what’s on the cat is in the cat. That cat’s going to lick that.
I saw they also make wipes in the dog sections.
They do make wipes. They make a lot of chlorhexidine wipes to use in between the toes in dogs that lick their feet. My comment to that is I find that they leave a sticky residue, and the dog is like, “I’ve got to get this off.” I would tell pet owners, “If you’re using a topical, be it a mousse or a wipe, on your pet, and it draws their attention to it, stop using it. To be honest, they’re going to ingest that. How much good is that?”
We’re talking about bathing. It’s like a spa treatment, especially for the dog. What about ear, eye, and nail care? Let’s talk about ears.
Why Less Is More When It Comes to Ears
We’re going to have Dr. Emily Rothstein, a veterinary dermatologist, talking all about ears. I’m going to touch upon that. I am not a big ear cleaner person. I don’t like shooting a lot of liquid in dogs’ ears, and especially not in cats’ ears. Cats’ ears are so much more delicate than dogs’ ears. I have seen in some veterinary clinics that they’ve overcleaned, if you will, the cat’s ears, and the stuff started coming out the nose. That is when they’ve ruptured the eustachian tube.
In normal ear cleaning in a dog, I don’t mind a few drops. I would have my clients make their own ear cleaner. I’d have them use 1-part white vinegar and 4 parts water. Put a couple of drops in. Put some Telfa around your finger and wipe it out. I don’t like them using Q-tips in there. Ear cleaning is something I like to leave to the veterinarian because they know what they’re doing in most cases.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes, I’ll do a little tissue on the outer flap.
The outer ear is fine. The other thing people need to watch for, regardless of what you’re using in the ear, if that ear, which we call the ear pinna, looks more inflamed after you use it, they may be having a contact reaction. Stop immediately and call your vet. Some of those ear products are sensitizing, if you will, and that’s not good.
We were sitting outside. The two cats and the dog were out. They were all hanging out with us. We noticed something. There’s the chipmunk sound. For the cat, it was about sight and ears. You notice the cats were riveted. They knew exactly where it was. The dog, Libs, was more scent-oriented. It was fascinating to watch. The two of us were sitting there, going, “Did you see that?” It was cool to see the cat versus dog. It was so obvious. Everyone is safe.
I’ve noticed that. Annie of the two, is the more conscious one before she even sees the bunny rabbit or the squirrel. You can’t say the S word. As soon as she walks out that door, she knows it’s in an area. She couldn’t even see it when I was letting her out.
It’s like a magnet, almost. The S is the snake word. We don’t like those.
We’re not talking about that. You know what we need to talk about, though? What about an anti-itch shampoo?
I was going to ask about that.
There are a couple of ingredients you need to look for. Oatmeal, which we talked about. Pramoxine is almost like topical lidocaine and novocaine.
It desensitizes.
Quite a few companies put that in their shampoos. Some of them make a leave-on rinse, which you leave on. That helps them for several hours or several days.
It gives them some relief.
Whatever you’re using to shampoo in, you want to keep it on for 5 to 10 minutes by the clock. That could be the longest ten minutes of your life.
I do this when I massage in the shampoo with Libs. I do leave it on because the groomer told me to, because it breaks down the oils and the dirt. It’s like when you’re cleaning a dirty pan.
You break it down, and then you rinse it off. Especially with low humidity, which is going to be high soon, I like a little bit of cream rinse on there because it takes down the static electricity. After I rinse them, I take a little bit of my cream rinse that I use, do a little bit of this, and rinse them. I even leave a little bit on.
We took Lib to get her grooming because she’s a very curly-haired Golden, and it gets matted. We get it trimmed about an inch or two in length. She hadn’t been in for 3 or 4 months. I went to pick her up from her bath, or treatment, or whatever it’s called, and the groomer said to me, “Was she sprayed by a skunk?” I’m like, “How did you know that?” Water activates the scent. What do you use? She didn’t get sprayed badly. Luckily, I know what to use, but I’m asking the doctor.
You’re not supposed to put water in them. Don’t bring them in the house, whatever you do.
You’re right. What we used was hydrogen peroxide, Dawn, and something else, wasn’t it, or just water?
You try to do the peroxide and the Dawn.
Your eyes water. It’s so bad.
It’s so horrible. They usually get sprayed in the face because they’re so nosy. You have to keep an eye on them for a couple of days after that because some of them get systemically ill from that.
Skunk spray is protective.
I carry that recipe with me and on my phone because you never know. Do not bring them in the house unless you want it throughout your whole house.
Always keep a fresh bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I’ve learned this from one of our guests.
That was me, the pharmacist. The minute you open it, it oxidizes and turns into water. Anytime peroxide is three for something.
It’s more than that here.
As a matter of fact, when we were in Florida, Gary down the street, who has two yellow Labs, at 6:00 AM was like, “Alice, do you have any hydrogen peroxide?” Thankfully, I had a sealed bottle of it. Always keep an extra.
I get the small bottles. It’s weird when you go to the grocery checkout because they’re like, “Hmm.”
I know. Don’t bring them in the house, though. The first thing you want to do is reach for that hose, but don’t do it.
Many months later, when she got wet, the groomer could smell it.
I’m convinced there are certain people who have the nose for that. They can detect it in one part per billion. My technician, Jan, was one of them. Your groomer is another one.
True or false. Dirty dogs build stronger immune systems.
It’s true. It’s called the hygiene hypothesis. It’s the same with little kids. This is why the Amish don’t have a lot of atopic dermatitis, because those kids are crawling around on the floor, in the barn, and everywhere else. Allergy in the Amish is pretty rare. We want everything clean. It’s much better if you let the infants be exposed to pets.
There’s a scientific study that shows kids who are exposed to pets at a young age have fewer allergies as they grow older. That’s true for puppies, too. I want to tell you that there was an interesting study several years ago with IAMS. They were making a probiotic at the time. They’re not making it anymore. They gave these developing immune system puppies probiotics. They followed those dogs out to three years of age, and they did not develop allergies.
Remember, when we had Dr. Cooperman on from Consumer Labs, they tested a lot of over-the-counter probiotics, and some of them had no probiotics in them at all. You want to talk to your veterinarian about that because there are only, in my opinion, three good ones. I might as well mention those three evidence-based probiotics.
A big treat for Libby is that we give her the empty PB jar. I only do it when she’s with me.
Supervision.
Surprise toy, and it’s a big treat.
Quickly, the three probiotics for pets with evidence-based are FortiFlora, Proviable, and Visbiome, so everybody knows that.
We’re doing our myth-busting. Are you ready?
Go on.
We covered this. True or false? Cats should never be bathed.
First of all, you know from multiple-choice questions that if a sentence has never in it, it’s always false. They can be bathed. The main reason that they’re bathed, unless they got into something, God forbid, and then we’re going to call a pet poison helpline, is with ringworm. Bathing, oral medication, or conazole gets them clearer faster.
Dogs with skin allergies need fewer baths.
They need more frequent baths to, remember, repair the skin barrier with ceramides, phythingosine, cholesterol, or fatty acids, and get the pollen off of them. Remember, when you’re allergic, you attract yeast and bacteria. Some of those dogs need bathing and antibacterial shampoos routinely. For example, my Annie is very tree allergic. We’re into grass pollen, so she’s not as bad. During tree pollen season, when all that yellow stuff’s flying around, I bathe her in an antibacterial shampoo because I want to ward off the infection.
Coconut oil fixes dry skin.
There are better products than that. Also, coconut oil given orally can predispose to pancreatitis. I would rather you use Omega-3, Omega-6, and fish oil because it’s proven. There’s a list of oils that help the skin and what doesn’t. Fish oil is at the top of that list. Safflower, sunflower, and coconut oil are at the low end of the list.
That’s interesting. I put it in my homemade lip balm.
I noticed that. With fish oil, it’s a pretty high dose. I would start at a low dose because it can cause soft stool. You don’t want to have blasting diarrhea in your house. Also, in dogs that have had pancreatitis, I’ve had some patients where they were on fish oil, and that kicked it up a little bit as far as it flared their pancreatitis. You want to talk to your vet about that.
Even my rheumatologist told me that when I started fish oil for inflammation to start very slowly.
Kirkland’s fish oil was ranked pretty good. I started taking 1,000 milligrams, and I was bruising very easily. I switched over to krill oil, and I’m not having that problem. Most people don’t know what a bruise looks like on a dog. It’s usually inside the thighs, where there’s not much hair. Mainly, it affects their tummy, so start low.
Last true or false. Wet noses mean healthy dogs.
You’re right. That’s a myth. I can call one of my dogs from their nap after breakfast, and they’ll have a dry nose. It’s not necessarily true. The thing that you and I have learned most about not feeling well is if your dog is doing something that’s not in his normal rhythm.
You, as a human, question something’s going on.
That’s true, but when you think about that, dogs eat the same thing every day. We might eat something and be like, “My stomach’s upset today. I ate too much garlic,” or whatever. They’re more creatures of habit than we are, so when they’re doing anything abnormal, something’s going on.
Retiring the Myth of the Soap Residue
What is the biggest bathing myth that you would like to retire?
That you didn’t completely rinse off the shampoo. Believe me, you’ve got it off of there. Even if you didn’t completely rinse it off, remember, these shampoo companies are making leave-on products, like chlorhexidine rinse. You leave it on. It’s a leave-on to ward off infection for up to a week, some of these products.
People tend to overbathe their dogs. Getting back to ear cleaning, your ears have a transient thing that cleans the ears. When you’re overcleaning the ears, you’re screwing that natural balance up. Overbathing is not good either. Don’t worry about, “I’m not getting the whole shampoo off.” You are, believe me.
When Libby gets a bath, and I’ll be honest, readers, we do it outside with the cold hose, and she couldn’t care less. We don’t have a hot water source.
Especially this time of year when it’s 90 degrees.
It’s almost like a spa treatment for her. She loves getting massages. You pull the towel out, and she’s rubbed out. She loves it. We enjoy it because she smells fresh.
Having said that, where I live in Ohio, and you live in Connecticut, the humidity in the winter is very low. Your skin is drier. Look at us. Our skin gets drier. You want to use a more moisturizing shampoo. Some people use Alpha Keri oil. They dilute it down. There’s a disease called sebaceous adenitis, which is a destruction of the dog’s oil glands.
We have them bathe the dog first in Palmolive or Dawn, and then we have them put baby oil all over the dog to restore the dog’s oils. We have them put Dawn or Palmolive to solubilize the oil and rinse it off. You can use baby oil or Alpha Keri oil diluted on the dog as a moisturizer, but you would probably use that more in the winter when it’s dry. You wouldn’t use it at this time of year.
What other tips do you have for pet owners and bathing their loved pets?
First of all, I usually bathe my neck from the neck down. Our older sister Penny, I was with her when she was bathing her Lhasa Apso once. She put the dog in the tub. The sprayer was like this, and the dog was like this. I’m like, “Whoa.”
That was Daisy.
It was Daisy Jane. I like to bathe from the neck down and use a washcloth around the face and on the ears. I don’t like to blast water to the eyes and ears.
I go like this, and I put the hose like this.
That’s fine. And that’s good. We like to start from the head and work to the tip of the tail. I usually take the shampoo. I don’t dilute down the shampoo. Do you remember I told you the reaction where some dogs get systemically ill with a fever 2 to 3 days later? Some of that has been attributed to diluted shampoos, believe it or not. You get bacterial overgrowth.
I put a line of shampoo down the dog’s back, take the sprayer, and then work from the top to the bottom. Make sure you get in between the toes and under that tail because then, that makes you look at that rectal area. You need to look there, like you need to look in the mouth. You need to look there because there can be bad things like maggots in the summer in these long-haired dogs, like Collies and our Goldens.
We’re going to have Dr. Christopher Lee on to talk about screw worm. Screw worm is a maggot that eats into healthy skin. It doesn’t get there because there’s a wound, as regular maggots do. You need to look under that tail in the summer if you have a long-haired dog or cat. If a fly lands on them and lays an egg, there’s the maggot.
We like furry butts. We cannot lie.
We can’t lie, but we need to look underneath those furry butts. I’ve had cats that have come in with maggots, too. Let’s talk about fleas, too. I could be on Facebook correcting stuff 24/7. People fight me on it, so some days, I don’t have the energy.
It’s best not to say anything at all.
Flea Myths and Parasite Prevention
I want to help these poor animals. A lady puts a picture of her cat that has what we call miliary dermatitis, little scabs. She said, “I found a flea, but that couldn’t be causing all these problems.” It can. One flea on the cat means you have 95% of fleas in the household. Ninety percent of fleas means larvae or eggs in your carpet, your floor, and the screen door frame. Ninety percent of the fleas are waiting to hatch out and jump. One flea in a flea-allergic pet.
When you get a no-see invite, you’re miserable. One no-see invite. I can get a couple, and I’m fine. It depends on how sensitive you are. Don’t tell me, “Could one flea be causing all these problems?” Yes. Call your vet. Let’s get on some safe flea control. There are so many good products. Don’t ever use a dog-based flea control on a cat. Cats are very sensitive.
Pet Bathing Guide: Shampoos, Allergies, and Skin Care | SOP Ep. 123 – Dr. Alice Jeromin Share on XI have an interesting story from our friend who’s an exterminator.
They’ve seen it all.
There were carpet beetles in the hall, but they didn’t have any carpet. They had hardwood floors. He’s like a mystery solver. He said, “Do you have any carpets?” She goes, “I’ve got my mom’s old rugs up in the attic rolled up.” The cat was crawling through the carpet, picking up the beetles on its skin. That’s how the house got infested. Can you imagine?
I was giving a lecture. After I was finished, an older vet came up to me. He was so adorable. He said, “Doc, my wife and I were so itchy, and we didn’t have a pet at the time. We couldn’t figure it out.” There was a bird’s nest on their windowsill. They got the mites from the birds, and they were itching up a storm. You never know.
Remember when we had Dr. Breitschwerdt on, the tick expert of the world, in my opinion? We had Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt from NC State and the founder of Galaxy Diagnostics. Bartonella, the cat’s scratch fever, can be carried by ticks, lice, and flies. He was telling the story of someone who had a bird that came down their chimney. It was a pigeon or something. The household got Bartonella. The exterminator who came to get the pigeon out came down with Bartonella.
From that pigeon?
Yes. Before that, he told the story of where they had raccoons, and they got rid of the raccoons. Guess what? All the mites and ticks that were feeding on the raccoons started to feed on the humans because they got rid of the raccoons. People who feed wildlife, you’ve got to be careful. They carry so many parasites that not only are they going to affect your pets, but affect you. How did we get onto parasites from shampoo?
Parasites are on the skin. I don’t know. We’ve got to wrap it up for our audience. Thank you for tuning in. Don’t forget to go to our website, SOPPodcast.com, because it’s cool. All of our episodes are written up. You can see all the notes and everything. We like it when you visit. Keep emailing your questions to us. We love hearing from you. Thanks for tuning in and making us number one.
Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Give your pets a kiss for us.
Bye.
Important Links
- Supplements, Safety, and the Truth | SOP ep. 100 – Dr. Tod Cooperman
- The Hidden Threat Of Vector-Borne Diseases Like Lyme & Bartonella | SOP Ep. 36 – Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt
- American College of Veterinary Dermatology
- Veterinary Allergy & Dermatology, Inc.
- Golden Retriever Rescue of Southwest Florida
- Back To The Wild
- Golden Treasures Rescue
- Silver Snout Rescue
- KD Animal Rescue
- What to Do When Your Dog Gets Skunked | Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
- Speaking of Pets Sponsors
- The Speaking of Pets Podcast is HERE for You & Your Pets
About Dr. Alice Jeromin
Alice Jeromin B.S. Pharmacy, DVM, Diplomate, ACVD, before earning her DVM degree from The Ohio State University graduated from the University of Toledo with a B.S. in Pharmacy and practiced as a hospital pharmacist. She completed her veterinary dermatology residency with Dr. Patrick Breen and dermatopathology training at Procter & Gamble, Miami Valley Labs, as well as a fellowship in human dermatology at Metro Health Medical Center with Dr. Bryan Davis. Dr. Jeromin is currently an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University, lecturer at Northeast Ohio College of Pharmacy, and former practice owner of Veterinary Allergy & Dermatology, Inc.
She is a former member-at-large on AVMA’s Council on Biologicals and Therapeutics as chairman of the supplements and compounding committees. Along with publishing in human and veterinary journals, she authored the dermatology chapter in “Pharmacotherapeutics for Veterinary Dispensing”. Her interests include human-animal comparative dermatology and skin lipid research with publications in both areas. She is a strong believer in client education and maintains her website, www.purrfectpet.com, for clients to be educated with evidence-based information. Her podcast “Speaking of Pets” aims to provide science-based information to pet owners so that they can make correct decisions about their pets’ health.