“I thought Ginger was going to die.”

It started as spring itch.

At the beginning of May 2008, L. Wisner noticed her dog Ginger, almost 13, starting to have skin problems. Ginger had minor flare-ups in springs past, so the family managed the hot spots with hydrocortisone sprays and waited. She kept getting worse, and the scratching didn't stop.

On June 6 they took her in. The vet wasn't sure what he was looking at; a scraping for mange came back negative, so he called it pyoderma and sent them home with antibiotics, a cortisone shot, and a medicated shampoo. Ginger was due for her annual vaccinations, so those went in at the same visit. The family did everything he told them to do. In her owner's words: "Actually, she was worse!"

A week later they were back, and a second scraping came back negative. Another shot, more antibiotics, and one remaining suggestion: a doggy dermatologist, which she knew would be quite expensive. She asked for a thyroid test herself; the T4 came back low, and the full work-up that followed came back fine. "By this time I didn't know what to do."

The night she found Nzymes.

On June 22 Ginger's skin was red and inflamed and she was running a fever. Her owner started searching the internet and came across Nzymes. "I figured she must have poor immune health. I was a bit skeptical at first." When she raised the Healthy-Skin Program with her vet, he said he didn't think this was the issue. She went ahead and ordered it anyway: the Healthy-Skin Kit, now called the Skin Rescue Bundle.

The kit came on June 25. The hard part came with it.

They started the products right away and followed the program by the book. There were good days and bad days: fever, diarrhea, weight loss. She lost most of her hair and her skin blackened. Her teenage boys called her "Resident Evil." She would get chills, so the family kept her covered with a blanket.

They bathed her every day to every other day with medicated shampoo, rinsed her with baking soda water, and kept her sprayed with the topical solution. A soft cone stopped the scratching without the constant scolding. "I had my doubts along the way as to if I was doing the right thing for her or not." They stuck with the program.

Three months in, the baths dropped to twice a week.

"It is now just past 3 months and Ginger is doing so much better," her owner wrote that fall. Most of the hair had grown back and most of the weight too. The every-day baths were down to twice a week, and Ginger turned 13 along the way. "She's come a long way in 3 months."

Her update, a year later: one more setback, then a better winter.

In November 2008 she tried a second vet, who said Ginger had staph and needed medications. She didn't want to, but conceded. A week in, Ginger seemed better. The week after, the same symptoms started coming back. Her owner stopped the medications and drew her own conclusion: the drugs they had been giving Ginger "may have been one of the reasons she got so bad in the first place." The vet had no other suggestion except a holistic practice 50 miles away.

She kept the Healthy-Skin Kit in Ginger's daily routine instead, with a better food and her regular baths. This time the setback "wasn't near as bad as the first time." Over the winter the baths stretched to once every two weeks. Some itch returned in the spring, the same season it had all started, but her owner's update made it clear how far they had come: "The great thing is, she is still with us even though she shows her age of 13 ½."