Willow has slightly flaky skin which I would like to address. She's not itchy at all, but when I give her a good scratch, you can see fine bits of dead skin coming to the surface. Her coat is otherwise nice and shiny and soft. I tried feeding her raw sardines a couple of times a week for a couple of weeks, but it hasn't made a difference. Does anyone have any experience of adding any oil (olive/coconut/fish/other) to food as a cure for this? I have plenty of regular olive oil and coconut oil in my store cupboards, but anything more specialist I'll have to get when I come over to the UK in a couple of weeks, so I need to make sure I'm getting the best thing possible.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? Has it always been like this or is it a recent thing? Eg this spring? I think it's quite common as they are in between winter/summer coats. A good groom sorts out Charlie. About the only time I do brush him...
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? She's had it for about a month, as far as I can tell. I first noticed it after her spay, once her string vest was off and I could give her tummy rubs - it's most apparent where she was shaved and the hair is still short, so I'm not sure brushing there would do anything. It's very, very fine and could almost be mistaken for dust (not that I have dust in my house, obviously) which may be why I didn't notice it before her spay, but I think I would probably have seen it anyway. I'll go get the brush and see what happens (if I can disengage my daft lap-thing, Shadow).
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? I give ours Yumega Plus oil, although that was because he had itchy skin. Everybody remarks how shiny his coat it. You have to give for 3 months to really notice a difference so may not be much help if you can't obtain it easily. I get ours from Amazon.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? I just gave her a good brush and only a few hairs came out, so I don't think it's a shedding thing. I may try some olive oil over teh next couple of weeks. It's not causing her any discomfort that I can see - she's certainly not scratching - so not worth a special vet visit. Having said that, I have to go get them a kennel cough and tapeworm treatment before travelling to the UK, so I could mention it to him then.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? I give my two a cod liver oil pill one day and a wild Alaska salmon pill the next. Both big size bottles purchased from Costco. And once a week, sardines. One tin each.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? Scooby had very bad dandruff when he arrived. I give him "Omega 3s for cats and dogs" capsules from Nature's Best http://www.naturesbest.co.uk/omega-3s-for-cats-and-dogs-p198/ - he gets 2 a day, which cleared it up dramatically. They are fish oil. If you email them they will send you some samples to try, free of charge.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? Salmon oil is a good one - I put a squirt on each meal
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? Penny gets omega 3 fish oils with her food. It's mostly for her joints but I'm sure it helps with her coat too. You could try giving her a bath with some aloe Vera shampoo which might get rid of some of the flaky skin in the first instance.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? I'll give my two boys salmon oil, one spoon a day. Their coats look shiny and doesn't fall out that much. Annemarie
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? I used Viacutan for a while, and very good it is too but expensive. I've changed my two over to salmon oil. They love it and their coats are great. From a dermatology point of view, fish oil is better than olive/coconut oil. I buy the big 3l box from Fish4Dogs and it lasts ages.
Re: Olive/coconut/fish oil for slightly flaky skin? Thanks all. Salmon oil is now on my shopping list
When Casper came to us at five years old, he had very flaky skin, not caused by an allergy, just looked like he had a touch of dandruff. Salmon oil sorted this out within a couple of weeks and it has never come back. I think @snowbunny saw an improvement too. Hopefully she will spot this and give you some feedback.
So, this is an ongoing thing with Willow. She has great times and less great times. Right now, she's pretty good. It's hard for me to pinpoint causes since her environment changes a lot on a week by week basis. But, yes, the salmon oil seems to make a marked improvement; I certainly see a correlation with increased flakiness if I stop it. But, she still has times where she's worse. So, I'm still playing with the things that are more controllable, notably her diet. I've cut out all wheat from her diet, as it's a potential allergen. That didn't seem to have much effect, but I'm happy to keep it out for now. I've more recently removed all chicken from her diet, and since then there has been a marked improvement. Again, this is just a simple correlation, and not causation; conversely, when we were on holiday in France, she was still having chicken and her coat has never looked better. So, I don't think it's as simple as "chicken is bad". Anyhow, knowing chicken can cause issues in some dogs, I'm keeping it out for now. I'm planning on switching to a "cleaner", food once we've nearly come to the end of their current bags, because I don't think that can hurt.
When you start reading about Omega 3 and 6 supplementation on the internet, it becomes rather scary reading about the dangers of overdosing! This post prompted me to look up if we've been giving Snowie too much salmon oil. He gets 4 salmon oil capsules in the morning after breakfast and 2 capsules at night after dinner. According to the charts I've found, he's getting half of the max allowed for his body weight, although that is not accounting for his normal dietary intake, which would come by way of raw venison, beef, and sheep meat and bones and some fish. His coat is unbelievably silky and soft of late -- he spent a month shedding enormously for winter and he has been left with a beautiful coat. I'm pretty sure it is the salmon oil because we upped the dose from 2 capsules per day (for anti-inflammatory purposes -- his bulging disc and allergies) and his coat improved as a pleasant consequence.
