Unusual Hair Loss
Hello everyone. Long time reader/lurker, first time poster.
We've had our dog, Drew, since he was eight weeks old for around 8 months now. Starting around two weeks ago, I noticed that his paw had this unusual 'bald spot' when we went to Northern California (we live in Southern California) to visit my boyfriend's parents. We took it as nothing and assumed it was a scrape from jumping off the car or scraping his paw from running around.
We've been back in SoCal for about a week now, but two days ago, I saw that there was another unusual bald spot above his left eye, it could have been there since . I sort of freaked out and my boyfriend said it was nothing to worry about. Today, I checked the scrape above his eye and it seemed to have gotten worse. The bald spot on his paw doesn't seem to have changed or gotten better.
There are only two possible culprits that I can think of that could be the reason.
It could have been an allergic reaction to something something he ate or been exposed to in NorCal. Or could he all of a sudden developed an allergic reaction to his food that we've been feeding him for the past couple of months since we're assuming it might be the reason why his ear smells so bad. It could also be the new treats (Newman's Own Organics Dog Treats - Turkey and Sweet Potato) that he had, or even the table scraps that he found lying on the floor at my boyfriend's parent's house. But if it the dog food, it might give us a good reason switch to Wellness or another similar brand.
My main assumption is the dog shampoo though, we forgot our own shampoo at home so our only alternative was to use Hartz shampoo, which wase only twice. I've read from my Google searches that Hartz shampoo has caused hair loss. If this is true, is there another alternative we could have used, such as Head and Shoulder (lol), which reminds me, our dog as really bad dandruff too, would there be any way to solve that too. :\
Err... sorry for the super long post.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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Your best solution would have been fragrance free baby shampoo, its gentle and easy on the skin.
If it was an allergic reaction to the shampoo, it wouldn't look like this, it would have been much worst.
based on the area of bald spots, I'm going to guess external allergens, read this and then rule them out with your vet.
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Permalink Reply by Chelle on
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How bad is he chewing or itching? micah gets those bald spots due to a flea allergy if I'm late with her flea medication. She constantly chews or itches the spots and pulls out the hair in the process.it's not a pretty sight but they should clear up in a couple of weeks once they're not exposed to the allergen anymore.
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Permalink Reply by christy fry on
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I would talk to the vet about an over the counter dandruff shampoo. When my lab was having dandruff the vet was going to give us a doggie version of anti-dandruff shampoo and I asked him if I could just buy some people anti-dandruff shampoo his response was an ingredent in the shampoo can cause problems in some dogs and to spot test it on him first before slathering him up in the human kind. I decided he had enough issue's at that point so just bought the doggie kind from the vet. I wish I could remember the specifics of what the vet said but at least spot test on your boy if you use a human over the counter anti-dandruff shampoo.. =)
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Permalink Reply by Lynne Cerny on
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Our Bucher will get spots on his feet after he is in the woods or swimming in the lake. It looks just like your pic. It will go away, but I have had to give him benadry a couple of times to get him to leave it alone. (Vet told me to). I don't usually give them baths unless they get into something. I got the shampoo from the vet, it is an oatmeal anti itch with moisturizers in it. I try to stay away from store brands, but I'm not using them all the time.
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Permalink Reply by Nikki and Drew on
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Thanks everyone for the great replies.
I caught Drew biting himself twice this morning after he woke up (like whole paw in mouth chew), so I'll try to get some Benadryl when I'm at the store later today. I'm hoping that will stop his paw chewing.
I'll stop by the vet and see if he has any anti-dandruff shampoo or suggestions and see if we can find the culprit behind at this. I'm starting to think the main culprit may have been something in their backyard though. I guess I didn't think it could be something in the backyard since he never had this problem at our place or even at my parent's.
Thanks again to everyone for these great replies, I'm hoping one of these will help with his dandruff and chewing problems! <3
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