Owners often expect scratching to settle once pollen season ends. For many pets it does not, because the wet months bring a different set of allergens indoors: house dust mites, storage mites in dry food, and damp. A year-round itch is a specific finding, not a failure of patience, and it changes what we look for.
Why the autumn relief does not arrive
There is a conversation we have every November. An owner has watched their dog scratch through the summer, assumed it was pollen, and waited for the first serious rain to wash the problem away. The rain arrives. The scratching does not stop.
Sometimes it genuinely eases. Grass and weed pollens fall away through October around Vancouver and Surrey, and a pet whose only sensitivity is seasonal will visibly improve. But a large share of allergic pets react to more than one thing, and from November the indoor ones carry more of the load, because that is where your pet now spends almost all of their time. Do not write off pollen entirely either: alder, hazel and cedar begin here in late January, well before anyone thinks of spring.
So the useful question is not whether the itch has stopped. It is whether the pattern has changed at all. A pet who was scratching in July and is scratching identically in January is telling you something that a pet who improves for three months is not.
What is actually in the house
House dust mites. The most common indoor sensitivity in allergic dogs and cats. They live in bedding, soft furnishings, carpet and mattresses, they feed on shed skin, and they are present in a home all year rather than appearing in winter. What changes in the wet months is not necessarily how many there are but how long your pet spends lying on them, with the windows shut and the carpet getting most of their day.
Storage mites, with a caveat worth getting right. These are relatives of the dust mite that can get into dry food, and they are widely blamed for more than the evidence supports. A review of the published work found that newly opened bags of commercial dry food usually have no detectable contamination, and that food kept indoors at ordinary room temperature showed no mite growth even after six weeks. What does allow them to multiply is heat and humidity, so the bag in an unheated garage, a carport or a damp shed is the one at risk, not the one in your kitchen cupboard. They also get in through damaged seals rather than chewing their way in. Where they matter most is in a pet already sensitive to house dust mites, who can flare after eating contaminated food, and they can muddy a food trial by producing a result that looks like a food allergy when it is not.
Damp and mould. Our winters are wet, our homes are closed up, and bathrooms, basements and north-facing walls do what they do. Mould spores are a genuine indoor allergen.
Dry indoor air, which is not an allergen at all. Forced-air heating lowers indoor humidity and leaves skin drier and more easily irritated. This is not allergy, but it lowers the threshold, so an already sensitive pet looks worse in December than the same pet looked in September.
Fleas, all twelve months of it. In this climate fleas do not reliably die off over winter, because the indoor environment carries them through. A single bite can trigger days of itching in a sensitive animal, and flea allergy remains one of the most common things we find in a pet whose owner is certain fleas have been ruled out.
The patterns that point somewhere specific
What your pet does is more informative than how much they do it.
- Feet, face, ears, armpits and belly. The thin-skinned, high-contact areas are the classic allergic distribution. Constant foot licking in particular is worth taking seriously rather than reading as a habit.
- Ears that keep coming back. Recurrent ear problems in a dog who is also itchy elsewhere are very often the allergy showing up in the ear canal rather than a separate problem that happens to recur.
- Rubbing the face, scooting, or chewing at the base of the tail. Each points in a slightly different direction and all three are worth mentioning.
- A change in the skin itself: redness, a greasy or musty smell, thickened or darkened patches, scaling, or hair thinning where the pet can reach.
- Night-time scratching that wakes the household. Pets scratch most when the house is quiet and there is nothing else happening.
- Cats hiding it. Cats rarely scratch in front of you. They over-groom instead, so the sign is symmetrical hair loss on the belly, flanks or forelegs, or scabs along the back and neck, rather than visible scratching.
Write down what you see and when. An itch diary covering a few weeks, with the month, the rooms, the food and anything that changed, is genuinely one of the most useful things an owner can bring us.
What you can change at home before anything else
None of this replaces a work-up, but all of it is free or close to it, and it reduces the load your pet is carrying.
- Wash the bedding weekly at 60 degrees Celsius and dry it thoroughly. Cooler cycles leave mites alive. Your pet’s bed, and yours if they sleep on it.
- Keep dry food indoors and sealed. Store it in the original bag inside a sealed container rather than tipped loose into a bin, and keep it in the house rather than the garage, the carport or a damp shed, which is where heat and humidity let storage mites multiply. Check the seal is intact when you buy it.
- Vacuum soft furnishings, not just floors, and empty the machine outside.
- Manage the damp. Run the bathroom fan, keep air moving in closed rooms, and deal with visible mould rather than painting over it.
- Keep the flea prevention going through the winter, on every animal in the house, without a gap. Gaps are where this falls apart.
- Do not start bathing more often on your own initiative. Frequent washing with the wrong product strips an already dry coat and can make December worse. Ask us what suits your pet before changing the routine.
When it is worth seeing a dermatologist
Your own veterinarian handles most skin and ear problems, and should be your first call. A referral to us is worth considering when the picture has become repetitive rather than resolving:
- The itch has run for more than a few months, or has now completed a full year.
- Ear problems keep returning after each course of care.
- Things improve while something is being given and relapse every time it stops.
- A food trial has been run and the answer is still unclear.
- The skin has started to change colour, thicken or smell.
- Your pet is losing sleep, or you are.
The point of specialist work is to narrow things down properly. It is worth understanding what testing does and does not do: the diagnosis itself is made clinically, from the history and the examination and by ruling out the other causes, and allergy testing comes afterwards to identify which allergens your pet is sensitised to so that a desensitization plan can be built around them. A positive result is not by itself proof that a given allergen is driving the itch. Our allergy testing page explains how intradermal testing works and what the visit involves. Allergy desensitization then builds tolerance to those allergens over time, and our allergy desensitization page covers what that program looks like. Be realistic about it: in a large study of dogs, roughly six in ten had a good or excellent response and about four in ten did not, and the assessment point was nine months or later, with some dogs only responding after a year.
Not every itch is allergy, which is the other reason to look properly. Parasitic causes, hormonal conditions, autoimmune problems, nail bed conditions and hair loss with no itch at all sit under our non-allergic skin and ear conditions work, and our skin and ear conditions page sets out what else we investigate. Persistent or painful ears get video-otoscopic assessment through our ear care service.
Our hours, and what is urgent
We are a referral dermatology practice rather than an emergency service, and we work weekdays only. Our Vancouver location in Mount Pleasant is open Wednesday and Thursday, and our Surrey location at Riverside Heights is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, both 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. We are closed Saturday and Sunday.
That matters because skin problems do occasionally become urgent, and when they do we are not the right door. Go to your own veterinarian, or to an open emergency veterinary hospital outside their hours, if your pet has a rapidly swelling face or muzzle, hives spreading quickly, a wound that is bleeding or clearly infected, a painful ear with a sudden head tilt or loss of balance, or if they are so uncomfortable they cannot rest at all. Call ahead where you can. Any difficulty breathing is the exception to that: leave immediately for an open emergency hospital and have somebody call on the way rather than before you go. Dermatology referrals are for the long-running problem, not the emergency in front of you tonight.
Common questions
My dog was better in September and started again in November. Is that still allergy?
Very possibly, and the shift itself is the clue. A pet who improves as pollen falls away and worsens once the house is closed up is behaving exactly like an animal sensitive to indoor allergens as well as outdoor ones. Tell us about both halves of the year, because that pattern narrows things considerably.
Could storage mites in the food be the problem?
Less often than the internet suggests. Newly opened bags of commercial dry food are usually free of them, and food kept indoors at room temperature does not grow them even over several weeks. Heat and humidity are what let them multiply, so the risk sits with food stored in a garage, a carport or a damp shed. They matter most for a pet already sensitive to house dust mites, who can flare after eating contaminated food, and they can confuse a food trial. Keep food indoors and sealed, and mention it if a diet change gave you a puzzling result.
Is a winter itch just dry skin from the heating?
Sometimes, but dry air usually makes an existing problem more obvious rather than causing one outright. The distinguishing feature is distribution. Generalised flaking with little scratching looks like dry skin; concentrated licking and chewing at feet, face, ears and belly looks like allergy. If you are not sure, that is a fair reason to have it looked at.
My cat is not scratching, so this does not apply.
Check anyway. Cats groom rather than scratch, and they usually do it where you cannot see. Symmetrical thinning on the belly or inner thighs, scabs along the spine or neck, or hair coming out in the brush in quantity are all the feline version of the same signs.
Do I need a referral from my own veterinarian?
Owners can request a consultation with us directly, and we work alongside your own veterinarian either way, since they hold the history and the records that make the first appointment useful. Bring or send what you already have: what has been tried, what helped, for how long, and what happened when it stopped.
How long does any of this take to sort out?
Longer than most owners hope, and that is worth saying plainly. Identifying the cause is often a matter of weeks, while building tolerance is measured in months and is managed rather than cured. The goal is a comfortable pet on a sustainable plan, not a single visit that ends it.
Speak to the team at VetDERM Clinic
If your pet has been itching across more than one season, has ears that keep coming back, or has skin that has started to change, request a consultation and we will take it from there. For anything sudden, painful or rapidly worsening, see your own veterinarian or an open emergency veterinary hospital first, because we work weekdays and are not an emergency service.
Published by the team at VetDERM Clinic.
This article is educational in nature and is not a replacement for hands-on assessment of your own pet by a veterinarian.
VetDERM Clinic
Vancouver: 15 East 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5T 1C5 (Mount Pleasant), open Wednesday and Thursday
Surrey: 14823 108 Avenue, Surrey, BC V3R 1W2 (Riverside Heights), open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
Phone: (604) 564-2214
Email: info@vetdermclinic.com
Hours: 8:00 am to 4:30 pm at both locations; closed Saturday and Sunday
