Hot Spots on Dogs and How to Treat Them

Infected areas on your dog may be Hot Spots. Hot Spots are normal skin bacteria that have overtaken the dog’s normal resistance and begun to cause painful itching lesions. The term Hot Spot is a pet owners way of referring to Pyotraumatic Dermatitis. You can see, Hot Spot is an easier way of common communication. Hot Spots are round patches of skin that may be swollen, oozing pus, smelly, balding, and causing serious licking, biting and scratching from your suffering dog.

Found most often on the legs, paws, backside, and flanks of dogs, Hot Spots can also appear anywhere else, such as ears, chest, neck, and sides. Regardless of the location, you can be sure your dog will be contorting around to lick, bite, claw or scratch to try to relieve the painful itching. Pet owners have a tough time when their pet is inflicted with this kind of infection.

Hot Spots show up on a dog for a variety of reasons: overly thick coat; humid conditions; environmental or food allergies; dead hair trapped in the undercoat; flea problems; tangled and matted hair; and ear infections. Hot Spots must be treated, or they will get worse, spreading to other parts of the body and also causing the dog to become ill-tempered and nippy.

How to treat a Hot spot:

Soon as you find the dog hot spots, it would be best to have the area shaved off. You should do this especially if your dog has a heavy coat on them. This will be the best way to the hot spots to get treated because you will see how bad the current area is. This would also help you assess more or less how worse the hot spot has become. At least it would already prompt you to bring your dog over to some vet care.

Once the area has been shaved, the next thing you ought to do is to cleanse it. Just like with wounds, cleansing allows you to stop the growth of bacteria and to prevent any further infections from happening. You should use a clean washcloth, some lukewarm water, and a gentle cleanser to cleanse the dog hot spots. This can help prevent the itchy feeling that prompts your dog to keep on scratching.

Once you’ve done the cleansing and until such time that you can bring your dog to the vet or he gets better, you can apply a cool compress over the dog’s hot spots. You can do this for two to four times daily using a clean washcloth submerged in cool water. Tea bag compresses are also known to help dry and disinfect the area.

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