hair loss

[janegold]

When we adopted our dog, she had terrible hair loss all over her body and it turned out she had severe mange (of which the rescue agency neglected to inform us). My understanding of mange is that the hair loss is typically in patches and often starts on the face and paws/legs. This doesn't seem consistent with the general thinning on her chest, but the patch on her neck does sound about right.

I would probably take her to a vet and ask them to do a skin scraping.

[ali2005jason]

What do you feed? My dachshund had some hair loss and redness on his chest and was told to try a grain free food. I switched all my dogs to Taste of the Wild and his hair is starting to come back. I do believe though that hair loss can also be from stress. Good luck!

[janegold]

May 21, 2012 14:09:10 GMT -5 namasteak said:

I thought it could be mange, but our other dog is just fine.

Demodectic mange is not transferable from dog to dog (except sometimes parent to puppy). It's not a mite issue as much as an immunity issue. Dogs with lowered immune systems can't keep the normal mites in check. If your other dog has a healthy immune system, he wouldn't be affected.

[janegold]

You know, I'm not really sure. For us, we didn't see it developing - she already had it quite badly by the time we adopted her so I'm not really sure how quickly it spread initially. It did get measurably worse within even the first few weeks we had her though, and it took quite a while for her to get better with meds that made her ill for months.

While I don't think that this is something you should panic about, I do imagine that the earlier it is diagnosed, the quicker and easier it would be to treat (if it is indeed mange.)