Rescued Corgi with Damaged Coat
I have 'rescued' a 5 year old female corgi, whom I've named Melly. The people who owned her shaved her down to her skin for at least a couple of years(she'd spent all her life with them). The last time she was shaved was last June. Her undercoat is slowly coming back (still short and a bit sparse) and the outer hairs are thin and about an inch long. When I picked her up about 2 months ago, she was covered with fleas, had flea dermatitis and had licked most of the hair off her underparts/belly. That hair is slowly coming back; I've got the flea situation handled. I'm feeding her good food and a supplement to aid her skin. I've bathed her with a mild oatmeal shampoo and last week had her professionally groomed, with an oil treatment. That seemed to help a bit.
Does anyone have any suggestions for anything else I might do for her? She's a very sweet little thing. I'm very pleased she's come to live with me. I certainly don't want to bathe her all that much. I've actually never bathed my other two, 5 year old Dexter and 4 year old Zoe. Melly has that doggie odor, something my other corgis never do (Melly is my sixth corgi); I'm hoping that once her coat and skin become balanced, the odor will dissipate. Thanks!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Maddy & Keke on
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I am sure you are doing all your best for her :)
You are both lucky to find each other!
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Permalink Reply by Lynne Cerny on
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Maybe try a little coconut oil in her food or even on the skin. There is anti-viral properties in virgin coconut oil. My dogs get just a little bit on their food and even in the winter they have a beautiful coats! If you type virgin coconut oil in google you will find lots of interesting info on it!
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Permalink Reply by christy fry on
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I use virgin coconut oil on my skin a couple times a week in the winter and once a month in my hair wonderfull stuff!! The first time I went to buy it though I was a little taken aback buy it's crisco like apperance LOL =) It say's on my tub that you can take a teaspoon a day. I haven't tried that though.
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Permalink Reply by Karen Dadisman on
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Good grief, coconut oil is terrible for your arteries. The fact that it looks like crisco should be a clue. It will look like that in your arteries also!!! Putting it on your hair or skin shouldn't be a problem, but eating it not so good. I wouldn't feed it to my dog either. Put it on the coat but not in the dog.
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I put a tsp in my coffee every morning... yum!! It has to be the expensive stuff though! Even The Doctors recommended it for dry skin in the winter. I like this kind
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Permalink Reply by LaRissa L. Head on
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Yeah, i'm a crazy hippy... so I have been using this for skin and hair care for a long time (Shhh...I use baking soda instead of shampoo, and my salon thinks I have amazingly healthy hair).
Coconut oil is by no means a low calorie food and it is a high fat food, but they are good fats. I use it in most baking and cooking as a replacement for animal fat (butter).Animal fats and vegetable fats react differently in the body. So it is being looked into as a heart healthy natural alternative.
I don't like over processed fake foods so margarine is a no go for me.
There are a lot of health benefits to moderate amounts of vegetable saturated fats.
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Funny thing is I know how people react to the coconut oil idea. It took me a while to believe. After I did a lot of research, (this is one of the articles I like; http://www.coconutoil.com/health_benefits_virgin_coconut_oil.htm), I tried the coconut oil for myself. I feel great and while everyone at work was sick and my husband had the two week flu, I never got it (no flu shot)! Anyway I started giving some to Bucher, just a little, I didn’t say anything to the vet until they made a comment about Bucher’s skin not being scaly anymore. One of the things that really made me think that coconut oil thing was for real is the cookies that I made and forgot about for a month…they still tasted great. Regular cookies with butter or margarine would have tasted bad after a week!
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Try salmon oil also. I give mine one capsule a day. They just chomp them down. I get them in the human supplement section of WalMart. All the big box stores have them. You can also get a salmon oil supplement in a liquid form for dogs. Most pet/feed/farm stores have it. I used to give them the liquid but got tired of the messy dispensers so went to the capsule. The dogs LOVED the liquid squirted over their food. YUMMY and really no fishy smell. The doggy smell might be coming from a yeast infection in her ears. Have the vet check them for you especially if she still smells funky after a bath. My corgis don't smell doggy unless they have rolled in something or they haven't been bathed in a long time. The ear enfection is easily taken care of with some drops from the vet.
Congrats for rescuing this girl. Glad she has a new, caring home.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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Hi Dee, you are doing great, make sure your home is not too dry, turn on the humidifier :)
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Thanks for giving this girl a good home. It will take some time for her coat to return and may always be a little different due to all the shaving. I would limit the baths, check the ears for yeast and try a supplement like salmon oil or the cocanut oil on her skin. Good luck...please take before and after pics for us to see how she blossoms! Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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She probably just needs time to cycle her coat back in; depending on where she is in her growth cycle, it could be just a few months or a couple years and as pointed out she may never return to normal.
Try removing a few tablespoons of kibble and giving her one canned sardine a few times a week. Get the kind in water. No salt is great but hard to find and in the short term a little salt won't hurt if she does not have a heart problem or something. Good fats in the sardines and no heavy metals (because they are little), and my dogs love them.
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Permalink Reply by Dee Dee Rypka on
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Wow! Thanks, everyone! I will definitely try the salmon/sardine thing, because I know fish oil is very beneficial. Not sure about the coconut oil, but will check into it.
Her ears are OK--I'm familiar with that smell, because one of my previous corgis, Anny, had a terrible time with ear infections. Every time we had a santana wind here in So Cal, Anny would get an infection.
I'm new here, so I haven't figured out how to get my photos in one place, but I'm working on that. Melly's coat is a beautiful color, golden red. Right now, she looks a bit like a cross between a Jack Russell and a fox terrier. I sure hope her coat is eventually like that of Dex and Zo, because they have really silky coats, but then, they've been pampered all their lives.
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