Need Natural Remedies Help for Dog With Staphylococcus Intermedius

Hi Susana,

I am sorry to hear about your dog. I have had a similar issue with one of our dogs... he gets itchy skin, which has turned into staph along his spine and ribs for the past 2 years. I have similarly spent a lot of money at the vet and nothing worked. I also tried every home remedy on Earth Clinic over the course of about 8 months. Finally I figured out a few things that have kept it from progressing to staph when his itchy skin flares:

1. Most important: I needed to find a food that wouldn't trigger an immune response (severe itchiness) and yeast problems. I have used a few brands successfully and tested about 10 brands in the past 2 years. He's currently on a grain free food from Honest Kitchen - Fish formula, which is a very expensive dehydrated mix. He was also doing very well on raw beef patties (bought from Costco) with Honest Kitchen base mix. If I change him to the wrong formula, his skin issues get much worse within a day or two. And similarly, they get better when I get the food right.

2. I bathe him in Dermabenss shampoo at least once a week, which I found on Amazon after searching pet shampoos for MRSA (which is what my dog was diagnosed with last fall). It's been the best shampoo I have found to date, and I have used several shampoos from the vet, apple cider vinegar rinses, borax and peroxide rinses (Ted's mange formula) and many other remedies listed on this site for staph infections.

3. I have been adding baking soda to the dog's large drinking bowl, about 1/2 teaspoon. Theresa has written about baking soda in water to alkalize dog's pH. I have two bowls of water for the dogs, one is plain filtered water and the other is the baking soda water and the dogs often choose the water with baking soda! {I tried adding 1/8 teaspoon of borax to the drinking water for a couple of weeks but it did not help the skin situation.}

4. My dog gets a fish oil capsule with every meal. This helps.

5. He gets probiotics with one meal a day.

6. I make sure to keep his ears clean at least once a week. He suffered from hematomas in 2014 and gets infections very easily if I don't keep his ears clean. I realized that if he scratches his ears and then scratches his back afterwards, it can easily lead to a staph infection.

I hope something in my post will help you! Wishing you the best... I know how hard this is!

Sorry, I realized I left something off my list yesterday! One of the things that seems to stop the staph from spreading after shampooing is a hot spot or wound spray on each infected area. I tried apple cider vinegar, yeast infection creams (monistat), turmeric, coconut oil for months and only managed to make the infection spread along the spine. These sprays help tremendously when used once or twice a day on the infected area until it heals.

Hi,

Topically I've found zinc based cream is very good for staph but dogs must not be able to ingest it because too much zinc is toxic and especially to dogs. I found the 'Badger baby sunscreen' to be excellent at healing it. It is about 18.75% zinc oxide and the other ingredients are all natural like calendula etc. Just make sure the dog can't lick the cream (we used an elizabethan collar at night just in case). https://www.amazon.co.uk/Badger-Balm-Baby-Sunscreen-87ml/dp/B007B1D0YY

Also flamazine is very good for treating staph. It is a silver based cream and also worked well.

All these types of skin infections are generally secondary to some other underlying allergy or problem such as seasonal pollen allergy/hayfever, demodex mange, flea bite, dust mite allergy or underactive thyroid. Sometimes food allergy could be to blame..

..Therefore one can only expect to get good control over the infections if the primary cause is also addressed and treated.

My german shepherd suffers with mucocutaneous pyoderma which appears to be a secondary infection caused by grass pollen allergy. I think the inflammatory reactions leave the skin vulnerable to infection by staph and/or yeast. Cephalexin should work well for staph, it did in our case but infection still commonly recurs due to the underlying problem.Also yeast infections from the antibiotics such as in the ears or skin will almost definitely occur if the dog takes the antibiotics for a couple of weeks or more (look out for red, itchy, hot ears..yeasty smells like baking bread and also blackening of the skin.)

To tackle my dogs primary problem (pollen allergy) I am giving my dog 'Swanson quercetin with bromelain' 3 times daily to inhibit histamine release. The quercetin has been very good at relieving his allergy hay fever symptoms (itching, runny mucous eyes..)

I am currently trying turmeric both topical and 3 x daily to see if works for this type of staph, since according to earth clinic, turmeric is excellent for staph aureus which is related to staph intermedius and staph pseudointermedius.

Hope this post is helpful,

best wishes.