Thank you-I will take your advice for sure and wait until we can buy a large piece of property. My Akita was the same way-it was in some way-a relief when she died because of the HUGE responsibility!
Dan

I wanted to buy a Fila but we have so many kids in our neighborhood that I was nervous about them. Please tell me about this fasinating breed. Would a Fila be too much for our neighborhood-we have no fenced in yard at this time. Dan

My apologies, I originally replied on 2/7...I wandered why you hadn't responded...
all I can say is...I must be getting old! Again, I apologize for the delay.

Part II...

I think it is a good thing working with a holistic veterinarian. People dealing with Malasezzia speak highly of holistic diets. If you hadn't
already transitioned to raw, I would have suggested grain-free and
elimination of anything with sugar or that will turn into sugar because sugar feeds yeast. All in all, past experience has shown me that the
frequent baths I did in the past...really do work. On the other hand,
the sprays like Malaseb did not help, it actually seemed to inflame/hurt the areas when i applied it. Btw, sometimes some dogs may require
ABT's to treat a secondary underlying bacterial infection. I know that I probably forgot something. I hope that you find something that may
be of help to you and Cane. In the meantime, if I can be of any
assistance let me know.

Apparently I did something wrong which is why my reply never reached you...

...my reply will be in 2 posts as the board said it was too long...

Part I

Hi AB,

I replied earlier, but apparently my response took too long as I received a message stating the token had
expired. At any rate I'm glad I can rewrite my reply as I made a couple of errors regarding the frequency of
baths. For years I bathed my dogs every week. I started with a degreasing shampoo followed by an
anti-fungal/anti-bacterial shampoo and then Lyme-Sulfur dip. I went from weekly bathing to 4 times per year.
This time around I've decided to work from the inside out. I'm currently doing a detox using MSM and
probiotics. My male has never had an ear infection, fungal or bacterial, but he has one now. He's being treated with Zymox otic with hydrocortisone; also using the Zymox ear wash solution.

AngelBears, did any of the vets give a definitive answer as to what they thought
Cane has? Yeast or allergies? Have you ever heard of Malasezzia Pachydermatitis?
Type it in the search engine and look at the pictures of dogs that have this
condition. Does Cane have any areas that look like any of the pics from the
search? Through my own experience I have found that scrapings can and do
come back as negative.

The vets we use both have giants. Dr. Johnson has an EM and Dr. Cridder has a couple of Danes. Honestly, I haven't found a vet that I like in many years. I don't think they are any worse than the others I have tried. They are very pleasant and easy to talk to, which is a plus. I am a little disappointed with them. We are dealing with a chronic skin condition with Cane. I'm not sure if anyone could help him but it is not like I can hop from vet to vet with him. So, we are just kind of stuck with the situation as is.

At least with Jagger you should be able to change vets or at least get a 2nd opinion if you feel you aren't getting good advice. If you want more info I would be more than happy to give you my phone number and go into a little more detail.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, just saw the little notification at the top! Thank you! He is my sweetheart, such a good boy! The dad is what won us over...he looks just like him in color already I hope his build follows suit! Duke(the dad) has a wonderful temperament, when we went out to their home(Humble) meeting him was the deciding factor. They live on 5 acres when we pulled up to the gate him and owner walked out.... Duke checked us out let us scratch his head and laid down, perfect gentleman. I meant to ask you, do you go to a vet that is familiar with Giant breeds?