Has anyone had this problem? We have a 16 month dobie that we have gone round and round with trying to find the right dog food for. Everything seemed to cause pudding poop. We finally have found Natural Balance Venison and Brown Rice, after 3 months on this, his poop is great. The problem is that during the course of finding the right food, he has gotten bald patches on his hind legs,under his chin, and one on his side. These patches of missing hair started when we were trying wellness dog food. We have been supplimenting the kibble for the past 3 months with the Salmon Oil Ed sells. No major improvement. The funny thing is 2 weeks ago he had emergency abdominal surgery, was hospitalized for several days, and put on the vets dog food(science diet rx), for one week to rest his gut....did see a little improvement, but nothing great. The vet did look at the bald spots, tested for mites (negative), and said to try 3000mg fish oil a day. Dog is 75lbs. Since he has been on salmon oil (3 squirts) for several months, I'm not sure is this is the answer. Has anyone our there had the same type of problems?

Portia, when they tested for mites, did they take a skin plug or just a scraping? Sarcoptic mites usually don't show up with a scraping alone, a deep skin test will turn them up, but the good news is that Revolution clears it up quickly. The other thing I would try is a raw diet, and if that isn't feasible, Innova EVO, which has no grain in it at all.

I thought with sarcoptic mange the dog wouldn't have actual bald spots but have a general thinning of coat and bald spots with lots and lots of wounds in them, while everyone in the household will also begin to scratch to the point of wanting to die...

...er, sorry, I'm still just getting over that sarcoptic mange incident with my dogs last year. My spitz hasn't even recovered yet. Looks like a stunted lab mix with his tail shaved off.

Sorry about you dog's problem...sounds frustrating!
Dogs with allergies may not show improvement, or may even get worse before getting better, until 2+ weeks after being on a new diet. I would go with the raw diet or what Laura said. Sounds like a definite food allergy reaction though.
Alison Voore

Thanks for the responses. The skin test was just a scraping.There are no open wounds in the hair thinning areas. Innova was one of the foods we tried. Gave him pudding poop, very dry skin, and gas gas gas. Dog food wise we have tried Innova, California Natural, Cannidae, Wellness, all with the above symptoms, all tried for at least 1 month each before slowly switching him to the next dog food. Dry patches became apparent with the Wellness. Nice hard stools, great dog breath and no gas on Dick Van Pattens Natural Balance Venison(made for the allergy dog in mind). I'm thinking that if it is an allergy, the improvement in coat/thin spots will be a a slow process to clear up. Have been trying the top kibbles because raw does not quite fit our lifestyle right now. He does get raw meaty beef soup bones frequently.....at least he did before his bowel obstruction....the obstruction was not a bone, but you can't blame me for being a little gun shy at what he is chewing on!

I'm sure your vet has already checked on this, but have you had your dog's thyroid levels checked? I ask only because my mutt was just diagnosed with hypothyroidism and I know hair loss and flaky skin can be a symptom and read online (the internet never lies, right?) that hypothyroidism is a common problem with dobies.

Good luck finding the answers. It must be very frustrating.

The vet has not checked his thyroid. I'll add that to my list for our next vet visit! In the meantime, I'll try to find more info about dobie's on the internet. Have heard in the past that dobies are notorious for skin and stomach problems. I've never had a dog with this many skin and bowel problems......and I've had a ton of different dogs/breeds in my life.

Hi Portia,

Is your Dobie a red? Sometimes the reds have much more sensitive skin than the blacks. We have a 1 year old female that has had various little skin/coat issues. Her skin is very sensitive and we have to be careful about what shampoo we use and what we feed her, etc.

We also had the mange test which was negative, but they did diagnose here with folliculitis and a round of antibiotics cleared that up nicely. The folliculitis showed up after we'd bathed her with a harsher shampoo. After that we haven't washed her with anything but the mildest soaps we can find for her and we haven't had a recurrance, although she still sometimes has thin spots on her coat and dry skin.

What we've done is gone to a diet where she gets nupro (a powder supplement) with her kibble and a raw diet for alternating meals. The breeder suggested using fish oils, flax seed oils, etc as supplements, but we haven't gone to that extent as we already gave her the nupro supplement with everything else. I can try to look up the supplement list she sent to us if you want.

good luck,

--Alan

Alan

Thanks for the info. Gunner is a black and tan. He has also had his course of folliculitis in the past! If you have the time to share the info that your breeder gave you, it would be greatly appreciated. Just yesterday, my husband and I were talking about maybe trying to supplement his diet with raw. I have been unsure about putting it together myself, but I do have one of Ed's books on the subject, will have to start reading up on it. How long have you been using this powder in conjunction with the raw diet? Have you seen an improvement yet?

Thanks, Portia