calliecritturs
Posted : 9/20/2008 4:21:59 PM
If were nylon then EVERY part of her that ever touched nylon would be raw, oozing and sore. Every bit of skin that contacts your nylon carpet would be sore. Not just a spot or two.
However, it is far more likely that something*you* humans have walked in and then have walked across the floor which has an oil that has stuck to the carpet **that** would cause spotting on the dog (i.e., only the contact areas).
Honestly, it's almost always natural fiber/plant material or metals or chemicals that are contact allergies. But contact allergies cause soreness or weeping blisters on *contact* -- so you don't have a contact allergy on one part of your body and not on another -- does that make sense?
But that allergen will last darned near freakin forever! (can you hear the frustration in MY voice -- I have several contact allergies and have had several dogs with them).
For example - you go hiking in the woods and don't even realize you've walked thru poison ivy or poison oak, and you come home and kick your boots off into the back of the closet. That was last October.
But in August of next year, you decide to clean the closet and you haul everything out, the cloud of dust makes you sneeze and you itch your nose.
Later on, you discover your right hand has tiny little blisters on it AND under your nose where your index finger caught your sneeze! What the heck?
You got poison ivy from the boots you touched that walked thru poison ivy last year. But you didn't get it "all over you" ... just those pieces of skin that got touched.
Or maybe your hand didn't break out at all -- but maybe you just grabbed the inside of the tops of the boots with your hands but the cuff of your sleeve brushed the outside leather of the boots so when you sneezed onto your sleeve your *nose* is all that broke out. Try figuring THAT one out. I have tiny little bumps on my nose -- and they itch like fire so what could THAT be? yep - poison ivy from 2d or 3d contact.
The inside of the harness if it's "loose" could have gotten rubbed with a plant (she plowed thru grass outside and it rubbed under the harness?) OR when one of the humans in the house sat down she rubbed against your shoe or pant cuff where there was some plant oil on it.
"plant oil" can be anything from a grass from your lawn (St. Augustine sod has at least 2 contact allergens built into the root system), to the Wandering Jew leaf you stepped on at work from the secretary's desk near yours and it rubbed onto your shoe and you took it 'home'.
So contact allergens can *look like* some massive widespread thing that only affects tiny areas of the body-- but in reality usually it's some very specific substance that got transferred ... sometimes a couple of times like leaf to shoe or pant cuff to carpet to dog).
If you're interested I can actually tell you a 'test' you can run to narrow down the substance specifically.