FLY STRIKE SKIN

Most vets will recommend giving your dog a systemic antibiotic to speed healing. Treatment involves physical removal of the maggots if any are present, wound flushing and cleansing with an antibiotic liquid medication, removal of any remaining dead tissue from your dog’s ears, and clipping hair from the area to aid in drying of the affected areas. What kind of veterinary treatment is available? Your veterinarian may also want a complete blood count, chemistry profile, and urinalysis to make sure the rest of your pet’s body is healthy.

FLY STRIKE SKIN

In order to differentiate between fly strike and these other diseases, an ear exam, skin scraping, bacterial or fungal culture, or a skin biopsy may be required. These eggs will later hatch into maggots.įly strike, with its red, crusty, bleeding lesions on the tips of a dog’s ears can look just like mange, scratching from allergies, vasculitis – swollen, inflamed blood vessels – or erythematosis, an autoimmune disorder where the animal’s immune system attacks normal, healthy tissue.Įar wounds can sometimes be difficult to diagnose without various specific tests. In some severe cases, the face can also be involved, and the bite wounds attract flies that lay their eggs in the damaged tissue. In floppy-eared dogs, the front edge of the ear is a popular site for fly bites. In erect-eared dogs, the flies typically bite at the tips of the ears. These insects bite and feed from the blood on the dog’s ears causing painful, red and bleeding sores along the edges of the ears.

A warm weather disease that primarily affects dogs confined to the outdoors in the summer and fall, fly strike is most often caused by the common stable fly, however, blackflies, deer flies, and houseflies can also bite.

Fly strike, also called myiasis, is an irritation of your dog’s ear caused by biting flies.