Hello! Back in February, my pup, Brimley, started losing his fur on his sides back towards where his hips are. He was scratching and chewing a lot, so I thought it was because of that. As the weather got warmer, he still scratched, but not nearly as much. The fur he lost on his sides never grew back. He has had large bald spots ever since! In addition to the loss of fur, Brimley has been shedding excessively to the point where his fur on his belly is thinning. He has also had a few hot spots, and most recently has developed dog acne around his mouth. We made a couple trip to the vets where he was treated for the hot spots and tested for mites and thyroid, both of which came back negative/normal. The vet couldn't give me a definitive answer as to whether he had allergies, so I finally decided to take a trip to a dermatologist vet. After a thorough exam and consultation, the dermatologist said she believes Brimley has allergies, and that it isn't seasonal. She said there is a 10% chance it is an allergy to food, and we could try an exclusion diet if we wanted to. She did not recommend doing allergy testing at this point- unless Brimley is allergic to tobacco, cats (and one other other thing - can't remember what it was), there is no point. We could remove things like tobacco and cats from his environment, but if he was allergic to something like dust or pollen, we could never get rid of something like that. The dermatologist also said that the loss of fur on Brimley's sides could be flank alopecia. In fact, that was the first thing that she said when she first saw Brimley. She ultimately recommended that we try giving Brimley apoquel for the next month and antibiotics for a couple of weeks. If his itchiness stops and his fur starts to grow back, then the plan is to just keep him on the apoquel indefinitely. If it doesn't work, she might want to do a biopsy. She also said we could try giving him melotonin to see if that helps with the possible flank alopecia. We can also give him a bath to see if that helps. I know that lots of you have had issues with allergies. Has anyone dealt with flank alopecia? Did you try melotonin? Also, does anyone recommend a shampoo I could use? I don't give Brimley baths often because they seem to make his skin drier. It is so frustrating to have a pup with these skin issues where there is no direct answer or cures! Sorry for the long post!!!
I have a dog with flea allergy that will rapidly lose great clumps of hair at the merest hint of a flea. And I've had a dog with acne. But no experience of what you describe, so I can't be very helpful. I just wanted to sympathise because allergies can be so challenging to deal with, and so difficult to pin down. Plus they make the dog look miserable even if it doesn't feel miserable. I do hope you get to the bottom of this soon.
My Lucius has a wheat allergy (doesn't make him lose hair but gives him an upset tummy he was very underweight when we first got him at 8 weeks because the breeder hadn't picked up on it earlier) and he eats burns hypoallergenic dog food which is wheat, gluten free and is the best food we've had so far apart from raw diet. He also has suspected hayfever as he scratches at his face a lot and has antihestimenes for this. Hasn't lost hair round his face but has runny eyes.
My Brewster is a mess. His ears were terrible inside but since having a months prescription they cleared up. But where like leather. He has lost hair under his chin which is sore and bleeds. His paws drive him nuts. We bath his paws daily and he has 2 apoquel a day. Summer worse for him. We did find no chicken helped but its so sad to see him like it. The other 2 are fine we have 3 English Labs.
