Skin and fur problem- what could this be?

[bullmama]

As I discussed before, I had the vet come out because shortly after playing in the kiddie pool Yuna and Tidus developed problems. Tidus got a huge ulcer in his eye and Yuna got a weird reaction or fungus.

The mobile vet came out. The vet says that Yuna seemed to have a fungus on her fur and prescribed medicated shampoo that I use every 2-3 days. He says if it gets worse we need to check to see if it is mange, although he did not think that is what it is. He does not have his scope or nothing with, so we did not do a scrape. The weird thing is, he had never seen anything like it before.

Dwelling over this, I have come up with several possibilities on how or why she has whatever this is.

1.) The kiddie pool, bacteria from the pool on her skin

2.) She eats whatever she can get her mouth on. Found some cardboard from a coke box in her stool yesterday. Did she eat something bad?

3.) Mesquite pods. Our trees were dropping these pods for about 3 weeks. Even though I raked them 3 times a day, they still got them because it is impossible to keep them all up. Wind blows, more fall. Evidence found in her stool daily!

4.) Shampoo. We bathed her in a new shampoo shortly before this happened. And now everytime I bath her with the prescription shampoo she seems to lose even more fur!

5.) Diet. I switched them from Canidae ALS to Canidae grain free ALS right before this happened too. With the grain free ALS I noticed their poops were not very solid and there was about 5x more poop in the yard than when on regular ALS.


So anyway, check out the pics. As you can see, it looks like someone splashed her with water, or grease. She is spotty with darker patches of fur.

Want to point some things out:

She IS NOT itchy. At all. If you roll her over her skin is beautiful and milky on her tummy. If you pet the area, she does not have that "ooooooh yeah itch it please!!!" motion at all.


I looked up symptoms of mange and itchiness seems to be one of the first signs. Not happening here.

Please, if anyone has had a similar experience with this before, she is 5 months old right now. I will have to bring her into the vet again if it continues, but I am hoping I can get some answers without having to do that.

 

[cali~jenn]

I havent seen that before either. I do know when we were feeding eukanuba, per the breeders recommendation Cutty had some weird spots that they also tested for mange which it wasnt. The vet actually gave me medicated shampoo to use and it didnt work. When we switched his food to canidae I believe it was it went away. (this was back before they changed their formula tho) Maybe just a reaction to the food? Good thing is she doesnt mind it so that makes you feel it is less urgent anyhow. If the shampoo seems to make it worse maybe try just using a mild baby shampoo and see if it makes a diff? Hopefully someone else on here has seen it and has better advice for you guys.

 

[TessaAndSamson]

I've never run into this problem, I'm sorry. I hope she gets better soon. I'm glad she isn't in pain though.

 

[Libra926]

Cadence has a fur problem at times. I think my mom said it was stress related. I have had experience with mange. With Vegas, the Dr says that too much was going on when we adopted him. Most of the time, puppies immune systems can fight it off. Every puppy is a carrier of mange, getting it from their mommies. It started as a white spot. I never looked too carefully at it, thinking it was a patch of white fur. Not until someone asked if I spilled some bleach on him did I look more carefully. It never went beyond the little speck. So, I'm 99.999999999999% sure it's not mange. I don't think it comes on that quickly.

 

[sheshistory]

Linus had mange when he was around 5 months and I waited until it got way worse than I should have before I took him to the vet. At first I thought it was a bite, then maybe he got into something...before long, he had patches everywhere and we had to give him six dips before he was back to his beautiful bullie self. That said, the pattern on Linus started with what looks like is on your baby's back there - the thinning hair in patches. Can you tell if the skin under the hair is inflamed or irritated? Linus also got the patches on his front legs and his back, which eventually lost all the hair and I finally acted and took him for a skin scrape then treatment. He wasn't particularly itchy at first but when he started to lose the hair more and the skin got crusty, he did itch it when he could. I've attached the clearest pic of I have Linus' mange to see if that helps any...she's a beauty, I hope she's doing better soon.

 

[bullmama]

She seems to have improved since I quit bathing her in the medicated shampoo, but I also changed her from canidae grain free to 1/2 c totw and 1 c avoderm twice a day. She does have a scab on top of her head, which she could have gotten while playing. I am watching her closely. No, her skin is not irritated underneath....

However, I am still concerned and definately not ruling out mange at this point.

 

[cali~jenn]

well hopefully it will be fixed on its own with the shampoo and food changes. Keep us updated. How is Tidus doing, better still I hope?
By the way your sig is CUTE! :D

 

[bullmama]

Thanks Cali, Tidus is doing better also. You can now visably see a red spot on his eye, probably because it is healing. I am going to call the vet today for an update.

Libra, wow that spot was large. I don't see anything like that on Yuna, it is almost like she lost her "undercoat" if that makes sense....

and Jill- Linus is so dang cute. I see the patches of redness, I do see a suspicious area on Yuna (a scab and some redness on top of her head), but otherwise her whole body is pretty and milky white/pink color.

It has seemed to have stopped progressing- so I am watching that spot on her head and keeping a close eye on her.

If it was mange- how long does it usually take to "spread"? It has been about 2 weeks I think since she first started this, since I first saw the spots, would it have gone crazy by now?

 

[sheshistory]

With Linus, his mange really developed into what you see in the photo there, when I think he was already being treated, over the course of a month or two from the first time we spotted it. I noticed something then had him staying with a friend while I got married and went on my honeymoon so it was a good month at least...I talked to my husband about it last night and it did start on his back and then patches started showing up on his limbs.

 

[TessaAndSamson]

My friend has a pitbull puppy "Xena" that was recently treated for mange. It started as a little balding around her eye, then she started losing more and more hair until there was almost a complete bald spot circling her eye. My friend has a german shepherd puppy "Smokey" as well that Xena wrestles with and Smokey likes to bite at her face. So at first we thought it was just from that but after a while it became apparent that it was something else. She also had a dime sized bald spot on her back thigh. It never seemed to look like the skin itself was irritated, or anything, it was just the balding. For treatment she was dipped once then sent home with a prescription, this was about a month ago. She is pretty much all healed now, almost all the hair grew back and you would never even know anything was ever wrong.

 

[Libra926]

You know, I think there are more than 1 type of mange.

Yep. I googled it. Vegas had the demodectic mange.

http://www.dogguide.net/mange.php

 

[sheshistory]

Yes, if it helps at all, Linus had demodex mange. It was pretty bad but cleared up within a few weeks of getting Mitoban dips.

 

[TessaAndSamson]

[MENTION=2]desertskybulldogs[/MENTION], how are the pups doing?

 

[bullmama]

Well, they are much better that is for sure. What happened with Yuna is that she blew her coat, but her coat now looks fabulous. She still has the scab on top of her head. I treated her with ivomectin, to be sure it was not mites or something else. No change. When Chip gets into town I will take her in to my other vet who is really good at dignosing skin scrapes. It does not seem to bother her- I wish I had a blacklight because that would tell me if it was a fungus or not. Geez at this rate maybe I should do vet school, it may save me $$$ LOL But other than the scab on her head- her coat looks gorgeous, no tear stains- ears look good, she looks a lot like her mum. She is such a pretty little girl.

Tidus's eye is all healed. But he did not seem to do well on the avoderm, so I switched to the fromm. Seems a bit better. I has also taken up permanant residency in a separated portion of the house because his mama is in heat. Now he seems to be doing better. He does not have tear stains- but loads of eye boogers and it is making dark circles around his eyes. His bed was under a ceiling fan and the a/c was blowing that direction, so I got to thinking maybe that is what is causing the boogers. He sure is growing- and starting to get broader! I am so excited to see him get older. He needs to be dried off after drinking I have learned cuz he has such a turkey neck that it was not drying and getting yeasty. Boy he is a mama's boy

Shortly after Tidus got the eye ulcer Queen Molly's eye got cloudy as well, and she got yeast in her nose rope again. I think the yeast is from trying TOTW, because it is going away with putting her back on Avoderm and using some Animax cream. I got the last tube of eye antibiotic from my vet, and treated her only twice before it went away, since I caught it as soon as it started I suppose that is why it did not take so long to heal.

Mandy is doing awesome, but she is still a sausage. She has not gotten any thinner- but I do blame this to being couped up in these hot summer days. Jesse is doing much better on Fromm and her 'leaky eye' does not water as much. Now if I could get these two to settle down and quit playing in the dirt when they are outside!!!! (and swallowing things!) They are still puppies really, I am sure they will be easier to handle when they are over the age of 2! I cannot keep their faces clean and they always have dirty noses. Mandy is so gorgeous, such a bulldog girl, so pretty with that all white coat- and Jesse is just- I dunno how to expain her- but there is not a person out there who would not fall in love with her. She is such a sweet thing.

Okay I am done bragging about my fur-kids.

 

[TessaAndSamson]

Aww I'm so glad they are doing better! I enjoy seeing Yuna and Tidus grow and mature. Tidus is already looking like such a little man and Yuna is defintiely taking after her beautiful mama