About Canine Skin Disorders

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about canine skin disorders. There are a lot of them, and they all can be from different sources, and the treatment can be different, as well. So check with your veterinary clinic, get a diagnosis first of what's going on. The most common types of skin disorders we see every day are allergies. Flea disorders, flea allergic dermatitis, which is an allergy to flea bites. We also see pollen allergies, dust allergies, food allergies, things like that, all can manifest by causing irritation and hair loss on the skin. Other common things could be just skin infections and rashes. Reactions to topical things or bedding. We also see mange, sarcoptic and demodex mange, which is a very common type of skin disorder that we see in younger dogs or dogs that are strays that aren't being fed very well, or immuno-suppressed. There are other things like ringworm, which is less common in dogs, more common in cats, that we can see. And so there are a lot of different skin disorders that are possible. Another one that we see quite a bit in older dogs is hypothyroidism, and in those dogs, they lose their hair. Their skin sometimes becomes crusty and thickened, and their hair doesn't grow back very well if it was shaved. So there are multiple disorders. There are infectious ones, there are parasitic ones like we were just talking about. There are metabolic ones like hypothyroidism. So check with your veterinary clinic. They are going to help diagnose what that skin disorder is, and also help treatment and work you through that."