Basset Hound, Allergies, and Love: How One Delightful Basset Found Her Home

Adoption

“So… my friend called and told me about this neighbor she has….”

“uh huh….??”

“Well, he has had some animals taken from him in the past and stuff and there is history of him not taking care of his animals…”

“yeah…?”

“Well, um… I guess he has a basset hound puppy and was looking to get rid of it and my friend thought of us because she knows we have a basset…”

At this point, I knew 100% where this conversation was going. If you have ever gotten a phone call from your significant other with this much pausing, you also already know where this conversation is going.

We were getting another dog. That puppy was coming home to our house.

“So… I was thinking I would just go and look at it to see if I knew anyone that might want it.”

“Uh huh. Ok, so you are just going to look at this basset hound puppy right?

“yeah"

I smiled on the other end of the phone as I quickly tried to figure out where in our household of 4 dogs and 4 cats we were going to fit another puppy. And I let her think I truly believed she was just going to “look” at the puppy.

An hour later, I received a photo of an adorable basset hound.

In the bright green grass.

In my in-law’s yard.

Guess who got a new puppy?

Adopting a Rescue

Bringing a new puppy into the house is always an adventure. Especially when you have dogs of all ages and sizes.

When Bucket came home (more on her name in a second), she was met by her oldest sister, Sinjin- another basset who ran the house; a brother, Shadow- a cocker spaniel who got along with everyone; a sister, Molly- a lab/spaniel mix who had dealt with her own past trauma; and Czar, the big brother Shepard/Husky mix who would become her best friend.

The first order of business was to discuss a name for this lovable, long eared, goofball. The guy that had her before we got her called her “Bucket” because she slept in a 5 gallon pail.

While being a sad story, it also somehow fit her, and we decided Bucket, it would be.

When you adopt a rescue, you immediately know that there could be issues arising from past trauma at any point.

In Bucket’s case, even though she was tiny, we quickly learned she had a few personality traits we were going to have to work with.

First, Bucket lived for a portion of her young years rarely getting food. Because of this, any time her dish is empty, she will get very anxious. It doesn’t have to be a lot of food- 3 or 4 kibbles is enough. She isn’t food aggressive, she isn’t demanding. But if her dish is empty, she will pace and throw the dish around, and cry.

Needless to say, with 4 other dogs, this can cause quite the scene. We learned to always keep just a few kibbles in a dish and she was good.

Second, for whatever reason, Bucket gets attached and strangely possessive of small stuffed toys. If it is small enough to fit into her mouth (think small puppy size), she will carry it around, pace, and cry and try to hide it and growl at any other dog that comes close as if she was protecting it.

Gone were the days of small stuffed toys.

Outside of those, Bucket quickly became part of the family. She and her oldest sister had a few arguments over who was ‘top dog’ from time to time, but overall she fit in like she had always been there.

Let the Itching Begin

When Bucket was old enough, she went to the vet to be spayed. All went well at the appointment and she came home and started healing quickly.

However, it wasn’t long after that she started to itch.

And scratch.

And scratch.

Our poor, beautiful, fun-loving basset hound turned into an itchy, scratchy mess. The poor puppy couldn’t sit still, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat.

We took multiple trips back to the vet where the guesses ranged from mites, to dry skin.

We tried antibiotics, we tried sprays, we tried medicated shampoos.

Nothing seemed to help. Our vet at one point approved her taking almost double the benadryl typically prescribed for her weight just so she could sleep.

At that point, she had no fur left on either of her sides, her stomach, her neck, and most of her back.

She lived in our daughter’s t-shirts and baby socks on her feet, to try to put a barrier between her nails and her skin.

We followed her around 24/7 and she slept in my arms. Every time she would move, I would wake up and grab her, because if she got down, she would scratch and I would wake up to find her bleeding through the shirt.

These were long days. Despite our requests, our vet was hesitant to do allergy testing because of the cost involved.

We finally convinced them and sent out for results.

At it’s worst, we were getting up with her 11 times per night to bathe her in cool water to calm the itching. It was time to wait for the results.

Dogs Can Have Allergies

When the results came in, we were shocked. We had experience with human allergies. But the number of things Bucket is allergic to is somethin we would have never imagined.

Bucket has allergies to:

Oats

Wheat

Yeast

Dairy

Ragweed

Pigweed

Oak

Beech

Birch

Willow

Grass

Dandelions

House Dust

Dust Mites

And about 4 kinds of indoor molds.

Guess what she was eating? Standard, every day dog food… ingredients? wheat, yeast, oats.

Guess where she was playing? In the yard… in the grass, with the dandelions.

Guess where she lived? In our carpeted house. Which has dust. Because, that’s what happens in a house.

Living With A Dog With Allergies

We quickly had to make some changes. The first, being that we had to learn how to give Bucket allergy shots. Two shots. Two times each week.

The goal of this was like human allergy shots, to build up her tolerance.

We also learned quickly how to make home-made dog food. We made large batches of rice and chicken and carrots two times each week.

Did I mention before we had 4 other dogs? It was quite difficult to explain to them why Bucket got special food and they didn’t… so everyone got homemade dog food.

Did I also mention that Bucket has issues with an empty dish? So even though we made her homemade food, we still had to keep at least a couple of kibbles out in the regular dish just so her anxiety wouldn’t spike.

None of this was a quick fix.

Bucket spent the first two years of her life either in a full-blown allergy attack or on the verge of one. She would grow some fur back and then scratch it off.

She couldn’t figure out potty-training because she felt so awful all the time that her body couldn’t read the cues that she had to go out.

She would try to play and run… and have to stop to itch.

The process of raising Bucket had a steep learning curve.

We learned that anything scented in the house would trigger her allergies instantly. No Febreeze, no scented detergent, no scented cleaners of any sort.

We learned that dog shampoos were a no-go. That sensitive skin shampoo that had been recommended for her? It had oatmeal in it. Surgical scrub from our vet’s surgical office is the only cleaner that touches her skin.

We learned that baths are sacred and bust be absolutely necessary, because the feeling of the water drying and evaporating makes her feel itchy and once she starts…..

We learned that the sprays the vet uses to clean up after anal gland expression will cause her to scratch off all of her fur in her nether region.

We learned that she is allergic to her rabies vaccine as well… and after an emergency rush to the vet, will always give her Benadryl before any and every shot.

Unfortunately, despite all of this, poor Bucket was still having allergy flares on a regular basis.

It was about this point that we learned that a company we used to buy supplements for ourselves, Melaleuca had a book that suggested supplements for dogs as well.

According to this book, you could use two of their products to help dogs with allergies. We were already using one of them as a probiotic, so we figured if it was safe for us, it should be safe for her. And we were getting pretty desperate because even with the allergy shots we were having a hard time ensuring that she had a good quality of life.

Bucket began taking Provex and Florify later that week on a daily basis.

I am not here to give medical or veterinarian advice, but I will say that for Bucket, this was life changing.

Bucket was suddenly able to go weeks and months without an allergy attack. She even stopped taking the 2x/week allergy injections.

For us, it was like a miracle. Our dog who was unable to run and play without stopping to scratch, suddenly was playing with her siblings and acting like a dog!

We began finding a dry dog food that did not contain her allergens and working to limit her exposure to the rest. We replaced our carpet with wood.

9 Years Later…

I’m excited to say, that as I sit here writing this, 9 years later, that our Bucket is still here and doing well.

She still has allergy attacks from time to time. It is now usually only once every year or two and we can get them stopped quickly by giving her the Provex/Florify combination (she doesn’t take them every day now unless it is allergy season).

We don’t leave her with a sitter, so she travels with us or stays with Grandma just because of the extent of her allergies.

We still do not use anything scented in the house and buy special dog foods.

A year after we got her allergies under control, at a yearly vet appointment, our vet told us that he hadn’t expected her to survive because her allergies were so bad. He didn’t want to tell us that at the time. But now that she was ‘out of the woods’, he wanted us to know how bad her allergies really had been.

We are still incredibly cautious when taking her places, and will carry her and use our own towel for a place for her to sit so she doesn’t touch any cleaners. And we ask veterinarian technicians not to hold her so any scented soap on their scrubs won’t get on her.

But overall, she is a healthy, happy 11-year-old Sassy basset hound.

For More Bucket Pictures and Videos Check Her Out On Instagram @bucketandbones .

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