Our 4 month old bullmastiff has demodex mange. The spots started showing up at 3 months, just after her 3rd set of vaccinations. We live overseas (Estonia), and the vets here (they are wonderful, but I need your opinions as well) say that the mange is not bad enough to treat. (The've seen a lot worse). Because of it, though, we cannot give her her final set of vaccinations and rabies shots until it clears up. Some of the old spots are clearing up, but she's getting new spots at the rate of about 2 or 3 a week.

She started with just a few spots, and now she has about 25 spots on her legs, face, and a few on her sides. The spots range in size from a dime to a quarter. The vet and the doggie dermatologist still say it's "not that many", and we should wait as long as possible to treat her to give time for her immune system to try to beat it. They say that if we treat her at this age her immune system might never beat it and then the mange will keep coming back the rest of her life, but if she beats it now, it will never come back. She's not itching that much, just a few times a day, and the spots are not oozing or infected. We know we can't breed her after this, but we hate to see these spots get bigger and bigger.

We know that she inherited (only in part) the weak immune system from her mother, but it's partly our fault (in hindsight) because in bringing her overseas from the States, we were on a time limit to get her here, and the breeder weened her a week earlier than her siblings in order for us to have her in time. Star is our first dog so we didn't know that this could be a problem (the breeder should have known better, but she said that since bullmastiffs grow so fast and are already so big at that age, it would be fine. The vet there agreed with her, so with the breeder and vet's stamp of approval we took her early), but we think that possibly she didn't get all of the immunity she needed from her mother in order to cope with this. Then after her vaccinations it weakened her body enough that the mange multiplied. Like I said, she's not covered with it, only about 25 spots, and the dermatologist said to just wash her with a really good shampoo for now, and wait.

So what I am wanting to ask of you - we can insist that the vet treat her now, but on her recommendation maybe we should wait to see if she can beat it. But in the mean time, is there something we can do to boost Star's immune system to help her beat it on her own? Is there a "non-treatment" treatment that we can do to help her somehow beat this so that it doesn't come back?

Thanks for your help! Brenda

Hi Brenda. My shepherd pup has demodex also. I'll share with you what I have found out. The mites can affect a dog in two ways. One is the localized form where there are only a few spots, what I read said 5 or fewer, or the generalized where it covers a lot more of the dogs body. Luckily Jerri has the localized form. She started out with three spots, two are almost gone and she has only developed one more. I did see where it was suggested to wait and see with the localized form but I asked my vet about it and she wanted to go ahead and treat with what is considered a fairly mild treatment. What we are doing is rubbing Goodwinol ointment on the affected areas once a day and bathing with Goodwinol shampoo. If you can't find it by that name the active ingredient in it is rotenone. As your vet may have told you, you can also dip the dog with Mitaban(active ingredient Armatraz) or use ivermectin, not sure of the dose on that. If she has that many spots I think I would go ahead and want to start some type of treatment.


Lisa

mitoban is the bath that my vet gave my gsd pup when he showed up with it. 6 weeks, one bath per week....cleared it up within 4 baths....have not had a reoccurence...

immune system plays the biggest role in this type of mange (from what i have read/been told)....my pup seemed to have a lowered immune system in teh early stages....

i have since put him on suppliments and raw and he could not be happier/prettier/more energetic.....

good luck....i hope the pup turns out ok....

Thank you! She came out with two more spots this morning. I'm not sure they have mitoban over here but I think I'm going to go ahead and ask for it. We already know it went from localized to generalized, therefore no breeding possible, so is there any other reason for not treating it?

I guess that it's such a big problem over here that 25 spots is "not that bad". The vet said that there are so much more worse things that could happen to a dog the attitude here is "it's only a skin problem" (she said it's not her opinion but the opinion of many) and that some breeders even continue to breed with it even though they know they shouldn't. The bullmastiff breeder here in Estonia was really excited we brought our dog from the States, because it would be a new bloodline for breeding here. That won't be happening now. So if our little Star is not getting rid of the mange on her own, I don't see a reason for not treating it any longer.

Thank you for all your suggestions!

My view is if a dog has a problem it shouldn't have, it needs to be taken care of. No matter if the problem isn't "as bad" as other cases. That has nothing to do with YOUR dog. For the dog's sake, it should be treated. IMO

Edited to add: I agree with starting him on Vitamin C to boost immune system.