Dogs can have allergic reactions to bug bites too

“Honey, did you see his eye?” my husband said to me last night, waving me over to the kitchen where he was kneeling and looking at our dog.
I walked over and much to my chagrin, saw exactly what he saw — a huge welt in the corner of our dog’s eye.
“Ouch — that’s a horsefly bite,” I said. “Time for Benadryl!”
We discovered long ago that in addition to being allergic to many kinds of foods, Sensi is also allergic to bug bites. Exactly which bug bites he is allergic to is a bit of a mystery, but I think we’ve pieced together the puzzle pretty well.
It’s actually the deer flies — which I commonly and incorrectly refer to as horseflies — which cause Sensi some misery. The bites will blow up into huge welts depending on the severity of the bite.
Bees, we think, cause an even greater and dangerous reaction in our dog. One time, we had to rush him to the emergency vet after he appeared to have been stung around his mouth. He swelled up to the point that he looked like a Shar Pei and the scariest of it all was that, like a person, his throat began swelling and closing up and his tongue was turning blue.
It was after that incident that we found out Benadryl can be used for dogs. The veterinarian at the emergency clinic gave him a shot of Benadryl and a steriod for that reaction, then recommended we give him two tablets of over-the-counter Benadryl every four hours until the swelling was gone.
She also recommended we keep Benadryl handy and, if any such reactions came about in the future, immediately give him Benadryl to stem the swelling and then seek professional medical treatment.
Since then, we’ve found Benadryl to be very helpful in treating the deer fly bites. It helps him to not be itchy and keeps the swelling to a minimum.
Keep in mind that Sensi is an 80-lb. dog. To find out how much Benadryl is safe to administer to your dog, call your veterinarian and ask. Never guess.

Check out this video of the welt on Sensi’s eye and how we administer the Benadryl to him in a way that he likes very much!