I have an 8 year old GSD. Long story short: an animal dermatologist is pretty sure he has allergic vasculitis.

Symptoms:
-Yeast/bacterial issues with skin (lots of licking, odor, grossness)
-Swelling in legs (possibly elsewhere but always noticeable in legs)
-Spikes fevers

More recent symptoms
-Eating dirt, big time. Not sure if it’s related to condition or what.
– Noticeable weight loss while we were away for ~2 weeks. Thought other dog stole his food when caregivers weren’t watching. Now thinking its from eating dirt. ?

We have ruled out food as the source of allergy problems. The vet seemed certain that it’s a local/environmental allergy as we lived in the area almost 3 years before this started. Also, he’s always seemed to have dry, itchy skin.

He gets relief for 2-3 weeks depending on meds. Hes been put on antibiotics, anti fungal, and a steroid. Two weeks on meds brings 2-3 weeks relief. Then we are back to itching, licking, odor, swelling, etc.

We did not take him back for allergy testing after the vasculitis diagnosis. It was just too costly at that time. I am hoping to get him into his usual vet very soon for his regular checkup but I really want him out back on medication.

Please tell me someone else had experience with this issue or something similar with their pup!