if you think your dog has poison ivy you should definitely wash your dog because if you are getting it from your dog then that's going to keep happening until you get that resin off the dog. the one thing is you can't spread it from yourself. so if you have poison ivy on your body and you scratch that's not how you spread it. it might be from under your nails or from your gardening toolkit or from your dog those can be sources of it but it's not from the rash itself. the way to treat it is really to see your dermatologist and get a strong cortisone cream or ointment or gel to put on it to help dry it up. when it's bad enough you may even have to take cortisone by mouth which isn't the ideal thing but sometimes when it's bad enough and it's uncomfortable that helps knock it out pretty well. it can start even two to three days after your exposure. so i have had patients come in and it's three or four days later and all of a sudden the rash starts to come out. so it doesn't always happen right away. the one thing is if you think your dog has poison ivy resin on its fur you have about ten minutes from your exposure to go wash it off. so if you have any suspicion; if he is out in the woods and he starts running around and he comes back and touches you and you know he was in an area where there was poison ivy try to get inside as quickly as possible. you can use soap to get that off your skin but after ten minutes it's in and you are going to have to deal with it. taking antihistamines also helps. so you can take that as well. something like benadryl or claritin or allegra all those types of antihistamines can help a lot. but sometimes when it's bad enough you just have to take prednisone by mouth for up to two weeks even before it starts to calm down.
i was walking my dog and may have gotten poison ivy. how do i get rid of the itching? do i have to bathe my dog?