
Spring is not just a vibrant season of bloom, but also of pollens and allergies – and even our pets are not safe from it. Dr. Alice Jeromin is joined by her sister, Janet Novotny King, to take a deep dive into pet allergies during springtime. Together, they discuss how to properly take care of itchy pets, the benefits of allergy shots and immunotherapy, and the recommended drugs to use such as Atopica, Apoquel, Zenrelia, Numelvi, and Cytopoint. They also discuss diets for dogs and cats with allergies, as well as how food like Live Clear by Purina can reduce allergenicity in cats for allergic cat owners. Tune in and discover how to take care of your beloved pets and help them enjoy this lush season.
◇ ─ ◇ ─ ◇
Froggy’s Golf Ball Retrieval offers the best programs helping you achieve the most from your water hazards. Not only will we treat your course with the utmost professionalism, our experience in removing balls from water hazards has taught us how to operate in an efficient, safe and productive manner since 1995. As we move into our next chapter, Froggy’s provides insured services, uses proven techniques and the most updated equipment to take care of the golf community.
We handle even the toughest water hazards that make our competitors walk away. Froggy’s is the Midwest’s premier ball collection company. Froggy’s offers several options to make your water hazards a profit center!
Please call us today to arrange to have Froggy’s harvest the balls from your water hazards.
Contact Owner Emily Newland at 574-544-9890 or email Froggysretrieval@gmail.com
◇ ─ ◇ ─ ◇
All footage is owned by SLA Video Productions.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the Podcast here
Warm Weather Brings Pets’ Allergies!
Thanks for joining us. I’m Janet Novotny King. I am not a dermatologist. The dermatologist of the day is Dr. Alice Novotny Jeromin-veterinary dermatologist and pharmacist, and my adorable sister, super smart, whiz bang. If you have a scab or a zit growing up, she was your gal. Let me tell you, she assumed the position. In this episode, we’re going to cover something that is so common and we get so many questions about this. It is Springtime pet allergies.
They’re doing fine. It’s winter. They’re in the house. They’re not out as much, then spring hits. Everything’s here. We’ve got the Red Oaks. It’s starting to bloom. There’s red stuff going and the Forsythia. All that’s going on. Libb starting to scratch a little bit, so something’s going up. We have a lot of questions for Dr. Alice. Welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s such an honor to be here and be interviewed by the great, most famous co-host, Miss Janet Novotny King.
Different Types Of Springtime Allergies For Dogs And Cats
Merci beaucoup. Here we go. What types of allergies are common in the spring for dogs and cats? Let’s do them together, soup to nuts.
First of all, it depends on where you live. We’re from the Midwest Ohio as most of our readers know. In Ohio, spring trees are the first to pollinate. If you go about Pollen.com and put your ZIP code in there. You can get a daily pollen count. When I looked at Cleveland, it was Maple, Birch and one of the other trees. Spring is trees. Summer is grass pollen. Fall is weed. Winter, believe it or not, we did a little piece on our Facebook page on winter itchers.

Winter itchers are house dust mites, which love darkness. If you live in Ohio in the winter, you know it’s dark. Janet, you’re in Connecticut. It’s not unusual to have a year-round itcher. In winter, most likely, that would be house dust mites. In spring, it’s tree pollen if you’re living in the Midwest.
It’s everywhere. It’s in your car. It’s on the car windshield in the morning. How can I tell if my pet has environmental allergies, food allergies, or the one no one believes their pet has, fleas?
You hit the big three. Let’s start with environmental allergies. Let’s talk for the dog. It’s called Atopy. Atopy is Latin for “strange”. It was named that way because back in the day, when people had these symptoms, they thought, “Isn’t that strange it’s in the same family?” Getting back to the pollen thing real quick. With pollen circulating, we inhale that. Pollen settles.
Dogs and cats are outside walking around in the pollen. They come in. They inhale it but they absorb it across their skin. In dogs, you absorb it across the skin where there’s not much hair. The inside of the ears, the underside of the chin, the underside of the belly, paws and the butt. Allergy is face, feet and butt. They’ll lick their feet. They’ll scoot. They’ll rub their face.
They get ear infections. It’s not the upper respiratory hay fever like we get this. It’s pretty rare for an allergic dog to sneeze. The cat is different. We’ll talk about cats in a minute. It’s face, feet, and butt. Depending on what they’re allergic to, they will lick those areas or get infections or get skin or ear infections.
It’s so sad because you know they’re suffering. It’s a good idea to rinse them off because you’re getting the paw off of them. If you’re going to do nothing else, at least do that. We’ll get into medications and a little bit. Wipe their feet off when they come in. Wipe their little muzzle off because they’re going to take that in bed with them and in bed with you.
Here’s a dumb question. I bought a minor yellow microfiber. Think about that. That would probably drag a lot off if you just had a couple of those at the back door when they come in.
You can use any cloth. People will buy pet wipes and things like that. I like cotton washcloths. I don’t keep reusing it because of the pollen there. You wipe it. I have a couple right by the door and throw it in the wash.
My Libby sticks her nose right into that long grass and the bushes.
I swear to God. For example, it snowballs. If they’re allergic to dust mites. Dust mites live in fabric, carpet, bedding, and upholstery. They come out at night. They feed off of exfoliated skin cells. Be it dogs or humans. Guess what? They like the cells of allergic individuals. It’s not only that they feed off the cells of your skin but they like you more if you’re allergic. It’s a double whammy. It’s true for dogs and cats. It’s terrible.

My son and husband are allergic to dust mites. I’m telling you, people. You can’t get rid of them.
You can wash things in hot water. They don’t like dryness. They don’t like desiccation. On a hot sunny day, hang your sheets out or do them in real hot water and dry. They like darkness. They don’t like light and dryness. That’s why they come out at night like a vampire.
We had those covers for the mattresses and I don’t think they did anything, quite frankly.
I know they tell you to buy those covers.
They were hot.
You don’t want to buy the plastic ones.
Go to cats.
Cats do their own thing. Dogs show signs of allergies anywhere from three months to three years. It would be very rare for a ten-year-old dog to start with allergies. We’ll talk about what else that could be. Cats are more middle-aged starting with environmental allergies. They look like anything. They do the bald belly, where they lick off all their hair. They get these little scabs called miliary dermatitis.
They get a big fat chin called rodent ulcer. They get these plaques on their skin, which is a long word called eosinophilic granuloma complex. There’s 4 or 5 different looks for an allergic cat. The most common thing that the veterinarians will give will be a long-acting cortisone shot. Which maybe is okay if your cat is itchy for three months or less. You don’t want to keep repeating those.
It can weaken the heart muscle. It can set them up for diabetes. You need to talk to your veterinarian if you have an allergic cat. You need to talk to your veterinarian if steroids are suggested repeatedly for either your dog or the cat. One thing that people don’t realize is that dogs and cats have allergies where they get worse as they get older. We outgrow ours. They grow into theirs. You want to get a safe way of treating them. That’s going to be their whole life.
As a cat owner, I would love the convenience of a shot. I’m just saying.
I agree with you. We’ll talk about a few different treatments for cats. There are some that aren’t oral.
Determining Mild Allergies From Serious Ones
Which symptoms indicate mild allergies versus a more serious problem? How do you know it’s allergies?
That’s true. Inhaled allergies or atopy, as we said in dogs, which means strange. It’s usually face, feet or butt. There’s some other things that can look like that such as scabies also known as sarcoptic mange. That affects the ears and elbows, hocks, and belly. I have to tell you. I’m doing a webinar for veterinarians on that of how not to mistake scabies for allergy. Let’s give that example. An eight-year-old golden retriever that’s never been itchy in its life. All of a sudden, it’s horribly itchy. It’s probably not allergy. You’d better look at scabies or what we call ectoparasite. Now, let’s look at cats.
For cats, you’ve got a rule out flea allergy. One out of three cats are flea allergic. If a cat comes into my office that’s itchy. I want to be sure that the cat is not exposed to fleas. I don’t care if it’s a high-rise in New York City. I’m going to put that cat on flea control because 1 out of 3 cats are going to be flea allergic. If I go on and perform allergy testing for other allergies, then we might never need to do that. You got the rule out flea allergy first in cats. In dogs, it’s true, too.

Dogs usually have what we call a naked butt. They lose the hair above the tail. They go after the hind end and down the back legs. Naked butt in the dog is flea allergy proven otherwise. We got some great anti-flea meds out now. It’s much safer than the bathing and the collars and all that stuff that we used to have.
Remember, we dipped them.
Horrible. The worst thing was, they would buy dog dip and use it on a cat. They’d kill those cats because they’re pyrethrin-sensitive.
How can they tell if the itching isn’t in some other infection, maybe? Do you know, sometimes they just get it raw? I’ve had that happen.
When you’re allergic, you get two things for free. Bacteria love you, and fleas love you. Allergic dogs or cats need to be on flea control. Since they’re excoriating themselves, you open that skin up to more bacteria. You have normal, nice Staphylococcus pseudintermedius bacteria that live on you. Imagine digging like that. You are pushing that bacteria down deep in the skin. It’s not supposed to be there in the deep layers of the skin.
Bacterial infection itches, too. Say I’ve got my four-year-old golden and she’s under control on allergy treatment, which I will talk about. I know she’s got like a little hotspot which is a bacterial infection. I got to get her on antibiotics for that or in antibacterial topical. That can snowball into something even bigger of an itching mess. Bacterial infection can itch too, to answer your question.
Are ear infections or paw licking typical signs of seasonal allergies?
Yes and butt rubbing too.
If you’re saying, they’re getting the pollen on the paw, and they’re licking, then it’s going again.
Absolutely. Foot infections, they come in and they lick their feet. If they lick their feet too much, sometimes they’ll get a little yeast infection. When you’re allergic, the preventive layer of your skin is screwed up. You absorb those allergens across the skin. Guess what else it is like to take up residence there? Bacteria and yeast. Yeast loves the folds of the feet and the nail holds. It also loves the ears. You can have a companying ear infection when you have environmental allergies and especially food allergies.
When you are allergic, the preventive layer of your skin is screwed up. You absorb allergens across the skin, and bacteria and yeast take up residence there. Share on XThink about it. Libby’s got a lot of hair. She goes outside and they get wet. They don’t dry off. It’s just waiting for it.
Can I just say, these heavily coated breeds like your goldens and my goldens, newfoundlands, and great pyrenees can’t stay wet. Their coat holds that moisture in. I’ve had Newfoundland patients that come in when they were not completely dry after their bath. Guess what? That wetness on that bacteria, the good bacteria on the skin starts growing. You have to completely dry them.
This is on smaller dogs. That white fur around the eyes that gets orangey brown. What is that?
That is called porphyrin. Porphyrin is in your bodily fluids. The light hits that discharge. I’ll see a little white dog on my walk and I’ll say, “He licks his feet.” “How do you know that?” It’s because they were all brown. The sunlight hits that porphyrin and it turns brown. Here’s something else. Alcoholic people get that porphyrin staining in their hands, too. I love comparative medicine. Sorry, but I digress.
Best Allergy Treatments For Dogs And Cats
What treatments work best for dogs and cats? I know my son and husband were on those shots before drops came around. You told me whatever shot they were getting was the same once the dogs were getting.
I know but we’re much cheaper as veterinarians.
It was a lot per shot.
Guess what? It’s the same allergy company.
I had to go to the office and the nursing home.
I know, but we teach owners how to give it at home. Let’s start with allergy shots like desensitization, but what we call it immunotherapy. There’s three ways to give that now. The shot, sublingual drop, and a little cream that’s made up of what they’re allergic to that you apply to the skin. You put it every day. My Annie is on that. First of all, you got to find out what they’re allergic. We’ve eliminated fleas and scabies as the reason they’re itchy.
What is an allergy test for pets?
An allergy test for pets is either a skin test, which most veterinary dermatologists like myself, do. Most general practitioners don’t do that because we’re testing for more than 50 different things. You have to use that all the time or they go outdated. That’s something people seek out a specialist for, but there are blood tests for allergy. The problem is, I can skin test or blood test a pet for allergies. It’s accurate to a degree but I can test a patient that’s not allergic and they’ll show up on positives.
You can’t use that test to say, “Janet’s dog is allergic.” You have to rule out other things first and say, “It’s not fleas, scabies, or food allergy. It’s got to be inhaled allergy. Let’s allergy test.” We did the test. Let’s do Libby’s test. She’s allergic to oak trees, rye grass, and ragweed. We’re going to take those things and put them in a solution.
Now, we can do an injectable solution where we give her little amounts increasing amounts once a week over time for the rest of her life. It’s going to build-up her resistance. It’s just like in your son and your husband. We then put them on a maintenance like a shot every three weeks. If we do the oral drops, we put what she’s allergic to in a little oral drop. Put it right over the lip two drops and two pumps. We do that twice a day.
That’s pretty much the rest of their life, because it’s not as long-acting as the shot. The transdermal topical we put on every day. Now, this treatment, this immunotherapy desensitization, is the only treatment to cure allergy. All the other things we’re going to talk about are just the symptoms. The downside is that it can take anywhere from 4 to 12 months to work. Very few, if any side effects, but it takes a dedicated owner. If you have Libby on allergy shot and you gave her, say, 0.3 CCs. In the next week, you’re giving your 0.4.
You think., “She was a little itchy after that 0.4.” You’re not going to go to 0.5 then. You’re going to call me. You’re going to call her doctor and say, “Dr. Alice, she was a little itchy.” I would probably tell you, “Let’s go down to 0.3.” At the beginning, it’s a little bit of titration. It’s my favorite way to treat allergies. It’s inexpensive in my office. I got to tell you, I’m retired now, people. I apologize because I know it’s a lot more expensive now. It probably costs you $20 a month. It’s $20 a month. It’s the rest of their life. To be on this, in some of these dogs, they were using only two vials a year. It looks like it’s hardly in.
The other thing is, you do the $20 a month or you have a miserable pet that could have got infections from the itching. They’re up at night keeping you itching.
It could be the other drugs that don’t get to the root of the allergy. You have to monitor lab work because they may be getting side effects from them. Let’s talk about some of those, though. Let’s talk about the most popular one. Let’s do dog first. The most popular one now is called Apoquel. Apoquel is something called a JAK inhibitor. That’s a category of drugs. There’s a Zenrelia and a brand-new one called Numelvi.
We have three JAK inhibitors. Human medicine has like 30. They work like magic. I prefer using them over the old prednisone. I don’t like prednisone at all unless it’s absolutely necessary. Janet, we’ve had that discussion before. The advantage of Apoquel, Zenrelia, or Numelvi is they work like magic. They last for a good 4 to 6 to 8 hours. The earlier ones, which is Apoquel, are shorter acting, like 4 or 5 hours. You can say, “She’s itchy. Let’s give her an Apoquel twice a day for the next three days. Settle her down.” There are some dogs that stay on it their lifetime. It’s much safer than staying on Prednisone your lifetime.
If the vet is going to keep your dog on Apoquel for life, let’s get blood work every six months. Let’s just check this. Sometimes, I had patients that they’re white count went down a little bit. I don’t like keeping someone on a drug forever if I don’t have to. I like Apoquel. I like Zenrelia. Numelvi is new to this country.
I would rather have them on something natural like the immunotherapy and use Apoquel, Zenrelia or Numelvi when they’re itchy. No one is going to be controlled on allergy shots. The pollen may be sky high now. I may need like a little bit of something to get me through today and tomorrow. That’s when we use Apoquel.
How Air Purifiers And Cleaning Practices Affect Pet Allergies

Crazy question. Should pet owner changed their home cleaning practice or at an air purifier? Is going to make a difference?
Not from what I’ve seen. It helps more human than it does dog. You got to remember. When you’re looking at pollen counts, they’re measuring that five feet above the ground for us and dogs are on the ground in it.
Outside. Not in your house.
In the house, it’s a whole different world down there in the carpets and everything else that’s in there. I’m sure in these carpets here, there’s pollen from last fall because this is a rental. Before we forget, I do want to talk about monoclonal antibody, Cytopoint, which is for dogs. Again, not for cats. We’ll talk about cats in a minute. There’s a new one coming out called Befrena. These are a once a month to every 4 to 6 week shots. There’s something called Interleukin-31 that makes dogs itchy.
This shot goes in, finds it and wipes it out. It’s a monoclonal antibody. It helps when the dog is itchy. When the dog is itchy and has a lot of inflammation, you’re looking more at Apoquel and Zenrelia. Let’s use an example. We use Cytopoint for itchy dogs that are allergic. Say I have a dog that has skin lymphoma and they’re itchy from that. I don’t want to use something like Apoquel, which may be an immunosuppressant, but I can give them a Cytopoint shot to help with the itching. Again, remember these are in place of cortisone and prednisone.
You have to have this very close relationship with your veterinarian or your veterinary dermatologist. I thought that way when the cat was diabetic. I called and said, “She’s not doing so great, or what?” You have to be very caring and loving pet parent, as we all are.
You have to be an advocate. Be it in human medicine or veterinary medicine. To be honest, more so in human medicine. We need to talk about our cat lovers, though. To cat moms out there, or cats dads. Poor cats. Cats are like the second-class citizens.
Can I be a cat owner?
They want to be not in your life.
I know. It’s their personality. I respect that.
I get it. The old thing for cats used to be, hit him with the cortisone shot and they’re off. We never looked to see what was wrong. Was it fleas? Was it food allergy? We will get to that. Was it atopy? In cats, we’ve got a fancy name. It’s called FASS or Feline Atopic Skin Syndrome.
Catopy is what Dr. Alice called it.
I hate when these smart people rename stuff. Let’s face it. We use a lot of steroids in cats. I don’t approve of that, but cats seem to tolerate steroids much better than dogs do. That’s no reason to not respect it. There’s a drug called cyclosporine. One of the brand names is Atopica. We use it in dogs for allergies. We had it before we had the Apoquel family. It’s okay. It works but it takes sometimes like a month for cats. Again, it’s oral. Janet, I know you’re not going to be a fan of this.

They make a little liquid for cats. What I like about Atopica for cats is, you start them every day and I start everybody on a minuscule dose. A lot of them respond to the little dose. You don’t have to do the big textbook dose and get side effects. I keep telling vets that but anyway. Give them a little dose every day. Once they’re under control, it’s like, “Let’s do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Let’s give them a vacay weekend. Monday, Wednesday and Friday you’re holding them. Let’s do Monday and Thursday.”
Actually, 33% to 45% of those cats can be tapered. As we said with allergy, I may have a bad day because ragweed pollen might be high. I don’t have a problem giving them a little bit of prednisone liquid in their food or something just for a day or two. Calm them down. Sadly, we don’t have a monoclonal antibody yet for cats. I love weekly allergy shots (immunotherapy) for cats. Janet, you gave your cat a shot every day. This is once a week.
I could do that well but not with these two.
I’ve said this before when I lectured events. Cats do so much better on weekly allergy shots than dogs do. I don’t know why. You can either skin test a cat or blood test the cat. Find out what they’re allergic to. Majority of time it’s dust mite. I do want to say this. I don’t have science to back it up. I feel the majority of allergic cats are orange or have orange in them.
It’s like a tabby. Should I change when I walk my pet during pollen season? Is it better in midday? When is all that pollen released?
I like walking early in the morning because it’s not usually that windy. Now, I can see the trees. It’s windy here. Also, remember wetness makes you absorb things better across the skin. When they’re out there in the dew or in the evening, you have to wipe those feet then. It’s hard to say. You just got to wipe the feet no matter when they come in.
How To Avoid Food Allergies With Your Pets
Let’s go to food allergies. You know I’ll give my usual shout-out to Purina, the cat food.
That’s for humans that are allergic to cats, Live Clear. If you are human like Janet or me, I’m cat allergic. I would buy Live Clear by Purina. Shout out to Purina. It reduces the cat’s allergenicity by 40%. That means almost half. If you’re horribly allergic to your cat, you’re going to reduce that by almost half. You might be able to live with that cat now.
I have two and it works with son and husband.
Janet, I think Purina should supply you Live Clear the rest of your life.
That’s all I buy from Chewy. It’s on auto ship. How do you know they have food allergies? I know that you would tell patients just lamb and rice or just chicken and rice.
That’s the old thing. First of all, let me get this clear. If you learn nothing else from this show, do not spend money on any blood test for food for a dog or a cat. They may be valid in humans. I’m here to tell you as a member of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology. Every 1 of our 130 diplomats would agree with me. There was no blood or skin test that’s reliable for food allergy testing a dog or cat. Please don’t spend $300 on that.

It sounds like a pet peeve to me.
It is a pet peeve. Thank you. A pet peeve to me and I’m going to tell you that now. It’s when people spend money needlessly on non-scientific things because the marketing was so good. There was no science behind it at all.
All of us standing on those pads that shake us make us lose weight.
It’s good for the lymphatics
It doesn’t make you lose weight.
It’s not for losing weight. The one clue that your pet could be food allergic, be it a dog or a cat, is they’ve got a skin problem all year round. It’s because they’re eating the same thing they are allergic to every day. Unfortunately, you can either cook a diet using BalanceIt.com or talking to your right or buying one of the prescription limited antigen diets. You’ve got to get them off corn, wheat, egg, beef, chicken, soy, dairy, and fish.
Get them onto a protein source they’ve never been on because the main allergen is the protein. In the dog, it’s beef, wheat, dairy or chicken. In the cat, it’s beef, chicken, or fish. It’s not enough, Janet, for you to go to the grocery store and look at these labels, “There’s no chicken in there.” Let me tell you. There was one study where they took like 30 bags of food. Compared what was in the food by doing DNA by what was on the label. Eighty-three percent of them did not match.
I guarantee you. If you’re looking for no chicken on a food, I bet you by the golly it’s in there. That’s why you’ve got to do the prescription diet from your vet. Not the limited allergen diets over the counter. Those are not DNA tested at the end of the line to make sure there’s nothing else. You do that diet for eight weeks.
It sounds difficult but you can get your vet to do the prescription through an online service like Chewy and have it delivered to you. They do other things, vet and get it. I’m all about convenience. I love having my pet food delivery.
What people don’t realize is Hills, Royal Canin, or Blue Buffalo they’ll refund you if you say, “My cat won’t eat that food.” You take it back to them.

They do.
It’s because they can be picky. For cats, we would always give two cans of each hypoallergenic diet in a little Ziploc bag. I never charge people for that and said, “Let me know which one they like the best and then we can have it sent.” You cannot say to a cat, “You won’t eat. You’ll eat when you’re hungry.” You can’t do that. They can get sick. You can say to a dog, “You’ll eat when you are hungry”.
How To Find A Veterinary Allergist And Dermatologist
How do our readers find a veterinary allergist and dermatologists in their area?
ACVD.org. You go on that site and click on Find a Dermatologist.
You use your ZIP code or something.
ZIP code or state.
They are everywhere.
We do have them. When I was first boarded, we only had two in the state of Ohio. Now we’ve got more than that because they are corporate. I wasn’t corporate but that’s the way the world is now. Chances are, your veterinarian knows of a veterinary dermatologist. If you can’t afford to go to one, most veterinary dermatologists, me included, will consult with your vet at no charge. We want to get these pets better.
How To Properly Bathe Your Pets
What else do you have to share with our readers about allergies in pets? What are the top three tips?
Let’s talk about bathing. Let’s do dogs, because a lot of people don’t pay their cat and live to tell about it. At least rinse them off or wipe them down with the damp towel. Let’s get some of this pollen off. If there’s not any skin infection, I would just use a nice over-the-counter shampoo that doesn’t have any medication in it. If we’ve got a little skin infection, we then need to go to medicate it. Which usually means chlorhexidine, 2% to 4%.
Janet, one of our sponsors, was Vetrimax. They make Command shampoo and we’ve got a video of you bathing Libby. Command shampoo is a mild bleach shampoo which people think, “Bleach.” Bleach is used in human medicine. It restores skin turnover time. If you look on my website, www.purrfectpet.com, I have a recipe for Dakin’s solution, which tells you how much bleach to add to water. You put a little sodium bicarbonate also. It was used it in World War II for treating wounds.
That would be an anti-bacterial/anti-fungal, the chlorhexidine or the sodium hypochlorite. As far as cats, there are different things out now, like mouses and things like that, or chlorhexidine. I don’t like to put a lot of topicals on a cat. What’s on the cat is in the cat. I would rather work medication-wise and desensitization wise. There’s not a lot of topics you can put on a cat that they won’t lick off.
They can’t hold their liquor.
They cannot. Can I remind you, all. If you are on Rogaine, using it on your head and sleeping at night, and that cat sleeps there. If that cat sleeps and licks that pillow where the Rogaine is, it’s very toxic. Remember, cats are out there tasting everything.
As a matter of fact, guess what was on the back porch? A dead snake.
Do you think someone hunted it and brought it?
Yes. It didn’t just crawl up and die.
We should probably talk about any oral supplements real quick before we have to go. For sure, we know Omega-3 fish oil helps. It’s not going to help right away, but I would have an allergic dog. Remember, we had Dr. Boyko on from Embark, DNA. If you do DNA in your dog, it can show whether that dog is going to have allergies or not. If it says, “Yes, it’s got the gene.” Get that dog on Omega-3s right away as a prevention. It helps normalize that screwed-up skin barrier. Other things like turmeric can help. Zinc can help. There’s been some studies with CBD that it doesn’t work great for allergies. It may calm down the itching, but it doesn’t do a lot for the inflammation in the skin.

Allergy Season Will Never Be Easy
Any other closing thoughts for our pet owners?
I just wish everybody will have an easy allergy season. How come every spring when I’m reading up on allergies, it’s going to be, “The worst allergy season ever.” It’s like that every year. They tell us that.
P.S., they gave us no warnings that this winter was going to be this bad snow-wise.
I know. You got it. I just want to shout out to Golden Retriever Rescue in Akron, Ohio, Golden Retriever Rescue of Southwest Florida, and Silver Snout Senior Dog Rescue in Venice, Florida, who’ve rescued all these cute little old dogs that no one wants. They come in and leave like a million bucks. They look like a million bucks because there’s so much love and care there. Thank you, guys, for all you do. Thanks to my lovely co-host. I want to give a shout-out to our fabulous producers, Duke and Joanne. We couldn’t do this without you. You keep everything running smoothly when Janet and I need editing all the time.
Thanks for laughing at our jokes even when they’re not funny. Thanks for tuning in. It’s hot allergy season. This is super valuable information. Don’t forget to email us your questions. We love hearing from you all. We read every single one of them. Thanks. Don’t forget to like us, love us, and follow us. Share us with your friends and tune in. Kiss your pets and give them an extra treat for us. Thanks for tuning in. Bye.
Important Links
- Dr. Alice Novotny Jeromin on Facebook
- American College of Veterinary Dermatology
- PurrfectPet.com
- Pollen.com
- Live Clear by Purina
About Dr. Alice Jeromin
Alice Jeromin, BPharm, 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, Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Jeromin is currently an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University, a lecturer at Northeast Ohio College of Pharmacy, and a former practice owner of Veterinary Allergy & Dermatology, Inc. She is a former member-at-large for AVMA’s Council on Biologics 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 along with hosting her podcast, “Speaking of Pets”.