Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Dog with Allergy or Demodex?

Just this week my 11 mo. old Siberian Husky female started losing hair near the corner of her mouth. The hair loss is just on one side of her face. I took her to the vet and they originally diagnosed demodectic mites. This was confirmed with a skin scraping, however demodectic mites are present on ALL dogs in limited numbers. The only reason they would get out of control is if the dog has a weakened immune system. The skin scraping only produced two or three mites, one of which was dead. However, a day or two after our visit to the vet, she has been scratching at the bald area at night causing bleeding. Itching is usually not a symptom of demodex. Over the last couple weeks I have been noticing a large number of unripened tomatoes in my yard. The dog has been eating these tomatoes and grabbing them from a tomato plant bordering our fence. I ripped out the invasive plant yesterday. Could a tomato allergy cause the hair loss and itching? OR could it be the demodex or some other cause?



Dog with Allergy or Demodex?

you generally will not see demodex in a skin scrape unless the dog is having an outbreak of them. the fact that your dog has hair loss, is itchy, has a positive scrape all points to demodex being the cause not tomatoes.



and yes, dogs with demodex can and are usually itchy.

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