My 11 month old German Shepherd has what appearsas flakey skin and is shedding alot.
She is in the house with us, but gets lots of outside time.

The problem started after staying with the breeder for a few days after my husband got out of the hospital. I contacted the breeder in early Dec and he thought it might be stress. She looked like she had dandruff. He suggested a good coat conditioner. I used that and bathed her every couple of weeks with a good organic shampoo.

I finally took her to the vet and they did not seem concerned.
REcommended medicated shampoo, because she was also scratching alot. and the coat conditioner.
I feel she is shedding way to much and her coat is to thin for this time of year.
We recently were told that the problem could be the food, she is on ProPlan.
Has anyone had this problem?

Here's some info about Pro Plan:
http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=126439&Searchpage=1&Main=13770&Words=&topic=1&Search=true#Post126439

Also, is your dog on daily salmon oil?

*sigh*

It certainly sounds familiar.

Take a look at this page: http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html

These are the ingredients that go into commercial pet foods and kibbles. Believe it or not, the ingredients mentioned on that site actually follow the AAFCO standards for pet foods. Horrific, but true.

There's nothing mysterious about your shepherd's condition, it's a direct result of the garbage she's eating.

The quickest way for you to fix this problem she's having and to prevent a huge number of future health problems she will develop is to switch her to raw.
The Leerburg website has excellent information on the topic and if you search this board (or simply read through the feeding sections) you will find answers to just about every question you can think of.

I hope you seriously consider making the switch to raw for your girl; it's the best thing you could do for her health

There are higher end kibbles that use quality ingredients, but they're still nothing more than extremely processed lifeless foods with a bunch of synthetic vitamins and minerals crammed in to make up for what was lost through processing. Raw is best.

Good luck to you and your shepherd. Do the research, it'll be worth it in the end and you'll be happy you did.

Just to add that shepherds tend to have a hard time with grains.
Dry itchy skin, a dull coat, bad allergies and constant problems with loose stools are the most common problems you will see with shepherds.

Well, the ones fed kibbles anyway. Those problems are pretty much unheard of in raw-fed shepherds and tend to disappear as soon as you switch them to a grain-free raw diet.

Gale, I don't know where you live, and this is my theory only as others may disagree, but could the excess shedding and dander be a result of the dry heat in the house (since it's winter I assume you have the heater on often)? I know in the winter, MY skin and hair are dry and I can't imagine it would be any different for dogs who spend a lot of time indoors. Having said that, I also believe it could be brought on by stress and bad nutrition and agree with the diet proposals of the above posters. It may be a result of all the above factors.

I had experienced similar problems with my rott pup, only in my situation my puppy not only had dry flakey skin he would also break out in a rash all over his back and stomach. We went the vet route with 4 rounds of antibiotics, prednisone and all the tests in our effort to discover what was causing this problem. It was finally determined he had “Flea Allergy”.

Taking advantage of all the information provided by the people on the site, I switched my dog off science diet to a human grade “no grain” kibble supplementing with vitamin E and fish oil “salmon”, the results were great. The kibble was good but I didn’t feel it was the best I could feed him, and not quite ready to switch him to a raw diet yet (I am, my husband's not)so I did the next best thing and switched him to THK no grain food. Now at a little over 11 months old the results have been amazing. He hasn’t broken out in a rash in over 5 months, no more flakes, his skin is clear, his coat thick and beautiful.

If that’s not proof enough, my puppy also suffered with CHD and was sore and stiff and limited on what he could do. By again following the advice on this site, he now has more freedom of movement and can run, jump and play with ease and hasn’t had any need for the pain meds my vet provided.

My opinion is you take the information provided, do your own research and decide what you feel will benefit your dog.

Good Luck,

Great point Sandy!

My dogs love the cold winters here in Canada but it's certainly hard on my skin, lol.

Raw meats usually have a relatively high fat content (red meats especially) which should help in keeping the dog's skin from drying out. Cold water fishes like mackarel and sardines are also excellent.
You can also increase the amount of organs (like liver) in the dog's diet during the winter and even give some homemade beef or chicken broth. The extra fluids help with the hydration issue when the dog doesn't drink enough water (water is boring but warm beef broth is far more palatable ).

I feed raw, including salmon oil, vitamin e, all the good stuff. I even feed my cats a raw diet. I always get "Wow, this dog/cat is so healthy, has beautiful teeth and is at the ideal weight." from the vet. But I have to say my GSD (13 months) still has the itchies, but nowhere near as severe as my last GSD, who ate kibble until she was 9. In her case, her problems lessened but did not entirely go away once I switched her to raw. The condition may have been too ingrained by then to ever be entirely cured. So unfortunately a raw diet may not entirely cure a skin condition, but I firmly believe it minimizes such problems. I think raw would help your dog tremendously, but you may have to look further, such as the dry air possiblity, and also be aware there are some very experienced dog people who believe over-vaccinating can cause skin problems (among other problems). I believe that too, but I won't call myself "experienced." My last GSD - the really itchy one - did get over-vaccinated through her life. I realize that now and still kick myself for not doing more research sooner. Here's a link to some information on the effects of too many vaccines: http://www.leerburg.com/vaccinosis.htm

I haven't yet figured out why my current guy still scratches, but at least he doesn't have the extreme flaking and shedding you describe in your dog. Could be I didn't stop the vaccines early enough - I had him get the complete puppy series, but nothing since he was about 4 months old. That could still have been too much. Actually, he did get one bordatella vaccine at 8 months before some extended boarding. I'm still kicking myself for that one. As you may imagine, with all this kicking, my butt is pretty sore . Not likely to be dry winter air (I live in Florida). Or he could just be predisposed to it. Unfortunately skin problems seem to be a big problem in GSDs, even in Germany.

In any case, please do consider a raw diet, and be careful of the vaccines. Good luck, and let us know what works.