10 Natural Remedies for Dog Skin Rashes (Western and TCVM) -

Itch · Topicals

Ten Things To Put On A Rash

Plant-based topicals for spring rashes and red bumps, sorted by the pattern you are looking at.

As the days grow warmer and the flowers begin to bloom, allergy season arrives.

The pollen and environmental allergens that affect us affect our dogs too, and the result is uncomfortable skin rashes and little red bumps.

There are ten reasonable things you could put on that skin. Working through all ten by trial and error while your dog keeps scratching is the slow way to do it.

The one thing

A bug bite or a plant contact rash is usually a heat pattern.

That single read narrows ten options down to two. For heat I reach for spilanthes or nettle tea, cooled, on a cotton ball or a clean cloth, applied to the affected area.

Everything else on this page has a place. Knowing the pattern first is what tells you which place.

Western view

What is happening in the skin

The skin is the largest organ and the first line of defense against external threats, so it reacts to a great many things. When a rash of little red bumps appears, this is the sequence underneath it.

Trigger An irritant, allergen or pathogen contacts the skin. With an allergen, the immune system mistakenly identifies it as a threat and activates a defense.

Immune response Histamine, prostaglandins and cytokines are released. These recruit macrophages, neutrophils and lymphocytes to the area.

Vasodilation Blood vessels widen, blood flow to the site increases, and you get the redness and the warmth.

Increased permeability The vessels also become leaky. Fluid and immune cells escape into surrounding tissue, which produces the swelling and the bumps. Papules if there is no pus, pustules if there is.

Cellular infiltration Immune cells arrive and release enzymes, antimicrobial proteins and reactive oxygen species to destroy the irritant.

Skin cell proliferation Keratinocytes multiply, thicken or change structure, which shows up as scaling or flaking.

Itchiness Histamine stimulates nerve endings directly. Scratching damages the skin further, which prolongs the inflammation and can lead to secondary infection.

Why it started

There are many reasons a dog develops a rash with small red bumps. The common ones:

Allergic reactions Flea or tick bites Bacterial infection Fungal infection Contact dermatitis Autoimmune disorders Hormonal imbalances

Allergic reactions here include food, medications, insect bites and environmental allergens. Contact dermatitis includes soap, shampoo and plants. If the rash is not obviously a bug or a plant, the work-up belongs with your vet before anything goes on the skin. I wrote about how that work-up actually goes.

Eastern view

The same rash, read differently

Chinese medicine reads the skin as weather. A rash is not only an event in the tissue, it is a climate arriving somewhere it does not belong, and the read is in the color, the course, and the discharge.

Heat. Red, hot to the touch, angry, fast. Bug bites and plant contact land here most often.

Damp. Oozing, weeping, sticky, smelly, slow to resolve. Heavy rather than fiery.

Dryness. Flaking, scaling, thin skin, a dull coat. The itch without much redness.

Wind. Moves around, arrives fast, leaves fast, no fixed location.

Blood stasis. Dusky or purple, fixed, chronic, the skin that has been through this many times.

Those five are the short version. The full framework, including how to tell them apart by lesion color and course, is in the six excesses, and the crosswalk from a Western diagnosis to the pattern is in how TCM sees itchy dogs.

For environmental allergies where the trigger is a bug or a plant, it is typically heat. That is the one to check first, and it is the one the next section is built around.

The remedies

Ten topicals, sorted by pattern

Each of these has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial or soothing properties. Filter to the picture in front of you rather than working down the list.

Some appear under more than one pattern. Tap to filter.

All ten Heat Damp Dryness

First choice for heat Spilanthes tea Heat

The fastest relief I have seen on a hot, angry rash.

Prepare Brew a strong spilanthes tea and let it cool completely.

Apply With a clean cloth or cotton ball, or soak a cloth and hold it against the skin as a compress.

Source Spilanthes at Mountain Rose Herbs

Second choice for heat Nettle tea Heat

The one with the most other uses.

Prepare Brew a strong nettle tea and let it cool completely.

Apply With a clean cloth or cotton ball, or as a compress.

More Nettle compared with quercetin for itchy dogs

Green tea HeatDamp

Cooling and mildly astringent, so it works on a rash that is both hot and weeping.

Prepare Brew green tea and let it cool.

Apply With a clean cloth or cotton ball, or as a compress.

More Green tea for chin acne

Aloe vera HeatDryness

Cools and moistens at the same time, which suits hot skin that is also tight and flaking.

Prepare Pure aloe vera gel from the leaves of the plant.

Apply Directly to the affected area.

Caution Avoid products with added fragrance or alcohol. Both are irritating.

Chamomile Heat

Gentle and cooling, good for a mild rash on a dog who will not tolerate much handling.

Prepare Brew chamomile tea and let it cool. Chamomile-infused creams and oils work too.

Apply With a clean cloth or cotton ball.

Caution Skip it if your dog has a known allergy to plants in the daisy family.

Calendula Damp

Cooling and drying together, which is the combination a weeping or oozing rash needs.

Prepare A calendula cream or ointment.

Apply Directly to the affected area, following the product instructions.

Caution Not on open wounds or broken skin without consulting a veterinarian.

Witch hazel Damp

Astringent. It tightens and dries, so it belongs on the sticky rash rather than the cracked one.

Prepare Pure, alcohol-free witch hazel.

Apply With a cotton ball onto the affected area.

Caution Keep it away from the eyes, nose and mouth, and off open wounds or broken skin.

Oatmeal DrynessHeat

Soothing and moistening, and the easiest one to use over a large area.

Prepare A poultice of ground oatmeal and water, or run an oatmeal bath.

Apply Poultice onto the affected area, or soak your dog in the bath.

Caution Make sure the water is not too hot, or you add irritation rather than removing it.

Coconut oil Dryness

For flaking and scaling. The wrong choice on anything hot, oozing, or already infected.

Prepare Unrefined, cold-pressed coconut oil.

Apply A thin layer on the affected area.

Caution Be careful with dogs prone to oily skin or skin infections. Coconut oil is comedogenic.

Lavender oil Dryness

The one with the most conditions attached. Read the caution before anything else.

Prepare Dilute with a carrier oil such as coconut or almond at 0.5 to 1 percent, which works out to three to six drops of essential oil per ounce of carrier oil.

Apply The diluted mixture onto the affected area.

Caution Not for puppies, pregnant dogs, or dogs with conditions like liver or kidney problems. Talk to your veterinarian before using it.

Closer look

More about spilanthes

Spilanthes is a newer itch solution to me. I used it on myself first, made as a tea and applied topically, and it took the itch away immediately. I have used it on my dogs after they came back rashy from a hike through fields, and it gave them the same relief.

Also known as Acmella oleracea, it belongs to the Asteraceae family and is commonly called the toothache plant or paracress. It has been used in traditional medicine for its analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, mostly for toothache and oral health. The main active compound is spilanthol, a lipophilic alkylamide.

Applied topically, spilanthol works through four mechanisms.

Ion channels It quiets the pain signal at the source

Spilanthol modulates the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 channel, TRPV1, which transmits pain signals to the central nervous system. Blocking its activation reduces the sensation.

Anti-inflammatory Fewer inflammatory mediators produced

It inhibits production of pro-inflammatory mediators such as cytokines and prostaglandins, which reduces swelling, redness and pain.

Local anesthetic The numbing you feel within seconds

It inhibits the conduction of nerve impulses, producing a temporary numbing that relieves discomfort.

Antimicrobial Against the organisms feeding the inflammation

Active against bacteria, fungi and protozoa, which helps prevent and treat the infections that can be driving the inflammation underneath.

From the inside

Do not forget the milk thistle

Alongside any of the topicals above, milk thistle can be fed as soon as the itchy symptoms appear. Milk thistle contains silymarin, which helps the liver and the body handle the histamine response to mild allergy triggers.

Note: Some links in this article are affiliate links (Amazon Associates or other programs I participate in). At no charge to you, as an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

I prefer to buy the human supplement, rotate the brands, and split it between my three dogs.

Limit milk thistle to three weeks at a time. Take a break of at least one to two weeks, then start again if it is still needed.

Two to leave alone

What not to reach for

Arnica Good herb, wrong job

Arnica montana earned its reputation for bruising, sprains, and blunt trauma. It has no established action on allergic itch, and on broken or chewed skin it can irritate.

Colloidal silver The antimicrobial action does not discriminate

It hits the resident skin flora along with anything pathogenic, and the skin barrier of an allergic dog is already a compromised ecosystem. Thinning it further is a poor trade.

The rule to keep

Give it three days, then call your vet

If the rash is a superficial or exterior pattern, these home herbal remedies will usually reach it. They are anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and soothing, and they support the healing process rather than suppressing the signal.

But watch your dog closely, and go to your veterinarian if the rash has not improved in three days, or if it worsens at any point.

The symptoms do not have to be gone. Minor improvement across three days tells you that you are on the right track. No improvement tells you something else is going on, and professional guidance is what finds the underlying imbalance.

Work with me

If the rash keeps coming back every spring

A topical calms the skin you can see. A dog who breaks out every single allergy season is telling you something about what is underneath, and that is a pattern question rather than a cotton ball question.

If you are treating the same rash for the third year running, the cotton ball is not the problem.

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