Hot spots are a symptom of allergies. Commonly, the allergies are either to fleas, food, or hayfever. If you control the fleas and feed good food then you can reduce the symptoms of hayfever. Certainly you can treat the symptoms of the hot spot but if you don’t get to the underlying cause then they will just come back.

The symptoms can be controlled with soothing herbal spray, or healing salve, or sometimes even just a bath. Sometimes a hot spot is so severe that your dog will unfortunately need antibiotics and steroids simply to control the symptoms. None of what has been described though, treats the underlying problem.

If you are feeding dry dog food, try switching to chicken and green beans for a week and see how that helps. It will work great as long as your dog is not allergic to chicken. Most common food allergies usually start with the greens and dry dog food. The dog with hot spots often takes a bit of trial and error to get the underlying problem figured out. And if the hot spots only happen once a year in July, by keeping the fleas and the food under control your dog will be less allergic to whatever it is that blooms in July.