Monday, November 29, 2010

Riggs is allergic to...

We finally got Riggs skin bacteria infection cleared up and today was allergy test day.  Part of Riggs's chest/stomach area was shaved and his skin was pricked with various different trees, grasses, weeds, molds & smuts, house dust mite, insects, and others.  Anything that registered a 2 or higher is considered to be allergic too.  As has been the pattern with Riggs since we first got him, he was allergic to almost everything.  He did best with trees and horrible with everything else.
  • Out of 20 different tree species he scored 2 or higher on 9 of them
  • Out of 5 different grass species he scored 2 or higher on all 5 of them
  • Out of 9 different weed species he scored 2 or higher on 8 of them
  • Out of 12 different molds & smuts he scored 2 or higher on all 12 of them
  • Out of 5 different house dust mite he scored 2 or higher on all 5 of them
  • Out of 4 different insects species he scored 2 or higher on all 4 of them
  • Out of 3 others (cat, feathers, & wool) he scored 2 or higher on all 3 of them
What is the next step you ask?  Allergy shots for the rest of Riggs' life.  Apparently dogs can not build up as strong a resistance to stuff like humans can so the shots will have to be forever.  So today we got to learn how to give Riggs a shot.

To give a dog a shot you pull up the loose skin located right behind his head and stick the shot into the pocket of space made from pulling the skin up.  We will have to give him a shot once every 3 days which will spread out to once every 10 days and eventually to once every 20 days.  Total bill today: $824.78.

Riggs shaved chest/belly area.  The little line of dots is all the various needle pricks they did testing on the various allergens.

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