Scratch plans to search the internet for itch cure

When Ben started to scratch, his owner did what so many others do these days and consulted the font of all knowledge, the World Wide Web, aka www., aka the internet, aka Google, #searchforeverything.

The process is quick, avoids the need to spend five wasted years at university studying veterinary medicine and is instantly rewarding.

Simply typing “dog scratching” produces a plethora of helpful websites, most of which contain pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo aimed at pushing you towards a change to a more natural life or the purchase of an unregulated, untested “wonder” product (even when the person advising you has a smiley face and calls himself “Doctor”).

Ben’s owner, however, is not so daft, and managed to wade her way through the dodgy adverts, marketing nonsense and frankly fraudulent until she happened upon a reliable site, which informed her that Ben was probably suffering from a food allergy. It was, after all, early autumn, so pollen allergies were out and she was conscious that she fed numerous items from the foods most commonly implicated – dairy, beef, lamb, chicken etc.

So, as a result of her exhaustive ( five- minute) research, she embarked on a novel salmon and potato dogfood and waited for the scratching to stop. It didn’t. It got worse. What had started at the tips of his ears and around his head spread everywhere.

He scratched from dawn till dusk and his skin got more inflamed and infected every day.

Desperate now, she met a man walking his dog in the park and he shared (quite literally) the secret of the tablets that had solved his dog’s itch.

Elated, she raced home to administer four of the wee white prednisolone tablets that she had been given.

She had been assured they would work within hours. But they didn’t. Oh they had some effect. Ben drank and urinated ferociously and his appetite increased beyond belief, especially when she upped the dose to five a day. But still Ben scratched. Finding it hard to cope, Ben’s owner returned to the internet, got out her credit card and purchased everything from anti-allergy wipes to turmeric, “itch-stop” tablets, cannabidiol oil , aloe vera, chamomile, human anti-histamines, coconut oil , oatmeal and cider vinegar.

All she had to do now was remember which ones she was supposed to give by mouth, which ones you rubbed on, which ones you bathed him in and which ones she should immediately throw in the bin (I could have helped her with that).

But still Ben scratched. (Find out why next week.)