Okay! I am sooooo glad I was forced to get a second opinion.
First off, Doc came in and just glanced at the chart and realized that she has been under medicated. My vet has had her on 500mg of Cephalexin 2x a day. Doc said she should be on 1000mg of ceph 2x a day. She has been on a dosage for a 50lb dog. Not an 85lb dog.
Second. the lab work that she has had done like the skin plugs that she already had was sent to the wrong lab. He said that my lab that it was sent to is for more normal routine things not skin.
She definatley has dry seborrhea. My vet yet again had her on the wrong shampoo. We had her on a shampoo that was drying her out even more for the staph and not treating the seborrhea.


Our options.
Our options was to try to medicate her correctly with the right dosage for 4-6wks. I have to go back though within 3 wks to check the dog to see if she is responding. This is the long way but cheaper way to see if this staph is just not going away from being under treated.
Second option was to get a full work up for thyroid and levels and to get another biopsy and that result would tell us what we are definetly dealing with. They would send this to a special skin lab and the thyroid test to another lab in Minnesota which would cost extra but they are the best lab for the thyroid. This route was estimated to be $987.67.
I asked the doc what he would do. He understood that I am very sick of dealing with this for 3 yrs and I am very frustrated. It was a very hard decision since she was under medicated and it could be as simple as that but not guaranteed. He didn't want me to spend that much money if it was just a simple staph infection that wasn't treated correctly. I didn't want to waste money since I have already wasted so much for the wrong dosage of meds. Which I will be taking up with my vet if it turns out to be that simple.

Our Plan
I am instructed to give her 1000mg 2x a day for 3 wks and then come back to see him. In the meantime, I have to bathe her initially 3 days in a row with the following

1. either Johnson baby, Ivory or Palmolive shampoo for set one
2. Sebolux shampoo leave on 10 minutes then rinse
3. Hylyt shampoo leave on 10 minutes then rinse

Then go to 1-2x a wk depending on the response.

We are also giving her Demcaps 1 cap daily

They scraped her skin for mange and found none. She has a big patch of shave hair to watch her skin respond to our treatment and see if the hair grows back in right. If it doesn't then the doc said that it definetly could be thyroid.

She was diagnosed for now as staph due to ????
skin scrape no mange
try consecuative treatment 1st before diagnostics


I have already given her 1st bath for the wk. Will do it again on tues and wed. Then go to 1-2x depending on her seborrhea. He said that she won't show signs of improvement with staph until about 2 1/2 wks that is why we are waiting 3wks for another visit. If this doesn't seem to be helping the staph then he wants to do the expensive route of the thyroid/biopsy. Which is a lot of money.

Thanks so far for all your help! I pray that this is her cure. I hope I don't have to go the expensive route.
If this is what was wrong, I will be taking it up with my vet and try to get my money back for mistreating the dog. Either in credit or cash. That was soooo wrong of them for under medicating her.

Doberman911 is working on a webpage for her so keep checking to see if they added her. I will post the link when they finally do. Any and all donations will be appreciated in her medical care.


Cara Hughes

The very first thing I would test with a stubborn skin condition is thyroid. My dogs get their thyroids tested annually even if there are no symptoms. The last time I did a full thyroid panel it was about $75. That's not much money compared to repeated vet visits and meds that don't get results. I have two older horses that both get their thyroids tested twice a year to make sure that their meds are working correctly. I hope you get this cleared up, good luck.