So, my doggie has a lower lip rash, she's had it for a while. I read on here maybe the zinc supplement would help, I gave her that for a like month and half I think, but no effect, it also I think contributes to her sensitive stomach so I don't want to keep giving it to her. I switched her to orijen so I am hoping anything related to a zinc deficiency will be fixed by the food.

Now I am wondering if there is some ointment I can put on it? The vet mentioned that there was an ointment to prescribe, unfortunately forgot to follow up on actually getting the ointment. But I am wondering if there is anything natural and less harsh than a prescription to try first? Like can I put aloe gel on it? Or tea tree oil? I presume she will lick it off her lip fast, so it needs to be safe for dogs to swallow. I presume a little aloe vera is just fine for her to swallow. Not sure about tea tree oil? Is there any good topical solution for lower lip rash?

Reading online I am thinking maybe mix like 50% coconut oil + 40% aloe gel + 10% tea tree oil? I know that'd fix in any rash for me, but is that ok to put on the dogs lip?

I also think she has a pencil-eraser sized spot of the same kind of rash on the outside fold of her vulva.

I would hesitate to allow ingestion of tea tree oil for a dog. coconut and pure aloe (not all aloe you buy in the sunburn aisle is pure aloe) will be fine. It takes a while to see results when it comes to a zinc issue. Multiple months for the skin to heal and then grow back fur so it could still be a zinc issue. Looks similar to what my girl had years ago that went away with zinpro supplement. The supplements needs to be slowly worked into their diet or it will cause upset.

I've also used straight up neosporin before on spots if I thought it could be some kind of bacterial issue. Does a pretty good job of nipping stuff up. doesn't seem to bother being ingested in the small amount little lip things produce. Sticky enough they usually don't completely clean it off.

Our female Dakota has a very similar spot on her upper lip, we have tried a few sprays and creams and it is still there after about 6 weeks. As described it's about the size of a pencil eraser. She is due for her shots soon so we are going to see what the vet thinks. It don't seem to bother her but she don't willing allow us to try and inspect it. If you have had any progress please post so we can try something similar.

I gave her the zinpro supplement once a day for maybe like 5 weeks without much difference. I tried bumping it up to twice a day as recommended but it seemed to give her the runs, so I could never consistently give her the full recommended dose.

Read some more and supposedly the garlic in zinpro can give some dogs a bad reaction. Also found that supposedly sensitive stomach is a symptom of zinc deficiency too. Mine has bad issues with sensitive stomach. So given that I'd expect a zinc pro to make her stomach issues better with higher dosage, but zinpro seems to aggravate her stomach. So I am guessing she is sensitive to the garlic.

So I've decided to try a different supplement with no added ingredients. Been using this one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B8YTP12?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
Supposedly that 'Zinc Picolinate' is the best form of zinc and the easiest to absorb from reading around. It is a human supplement, but from also reading around that doesn't matter, zinc picolinate is zinc picolinate and supposedly that one is just fine for dogs. Also supposedly huskies need more zinc than humans. Human recommended dose is 30mg, but I saw a number of sites say that huskies may need up to 100mg.

Anyways each capsule of that zinc picolinate is 30 mg, I have been opening the capsule and mixing the powder in with a little spot of her wet food. I tasted it myself and it does taste metallic and bitter, but she doesn't seem to care at all. Maybe dogs are less sensitive to metallic/bitter taste. Don't know. But at least the one capsule doesn't seem to phase her at all.

It's been maybe over a week now and the rash isn't better, it isn't worse, so maybe it's working. Might take a month or more. But I have noticed since giving her this zinc the has not had diarrhea at all. I even introduced to her a new flavor of orijen she's never had, both dry and wet, had no issue switching food. She also ate the food at a boarding house one night and didn't even get diarrhea. Which all of that is unheard of with her, switching flavors always gives diarrhea, switching brands DEFINITELY gives diarrhea, and neither gave her diarrhea. So, I am hoping that's a sign she was zinc deficient and that she is actually absorbing this supplement properly, and it is helping her sensitive stomach.

We mostly got spider under control when we switched to raw. Withh her i speculate it had something to do with starches but she does have a genetic defect that huskies are prone too. Good at least one issue seems to be resolving

hm maybe I should try raw... I just worry its too much and complication

Our husky, who just turned 3 in August, developed the same lower lip rash...in August. We went to the vet, they said allergies, which is valid because he is allergic to bees and loves to forage in our garden. We tried Prednisone, worked while on it, rash came back within 3 says of finishing meds. Tried steroids again since...still bees in the garden and all over the yard in August. We had to board him in September for a family wedding so we used our brothers kennel, out of town as all the family dogs went to "jail" together. His face came out looking horrible, it was under the eye, around the nose, both sides of the lips. I happened to see this forum post about zinc deficiency so my husband and I started researching it. Back to the vet, tried an expensive steroid shot and I asked about the Zinc deficiency thing. I've used our vet for years and they've treated all our huskies so they started looking into as they had never had a case of it but had heard of it in vet school. They eventually agreed with us and we started Boreal palatable zinc supplement at the end of September.
Within 10 days we started to see a difference. Our younger Sib gets 1.5 tsps every night with dinner and we started our older one, Loki in the picture, on it (he just turned 7 on Nov 13; he gets 0.5 tsp/day). The hair is growing back and our older dog has significantly cut down on his daily shedding. I can't thank you all enough for the information, his poor face was horrible and it was starting to spread to his groin. This forum is just so great!!! I included a link to what we bought at the bottom.

Thank you from our pack and Happy Thanksgiving.

https://www.amazon.com/Bor%C3%A9al-Palatable-Zinc-Supplement-Re-Sealable/dp/B01N2TYGE2

Nicole Raslich wrote:

Our husky, who just turned 3 in August, developed the same lower lip rash...in August. We went to the vet, they said allergies, which is valid because he is allergic to bees and loves to forage in our garden. We tried Prednisone, worked while on it, rash came back within 3 says of finishing meds. Tried steroids again since...still bees in the garden and all over the yard in August. We had to board him in September for a family wedding so we used our brothers kennel, out of town as all the family dogs went to "jail" together. His face came out looking horrible, it was under the eye, around the nose, both sides of the lips. I happened to see this forum post about zinc deficiency so my husband and I started researching it. Back to the vet, tried an expensive steroid shot and I asked about the Zinc deficiency thing. I've used our vet for years and they've treated all our huskies so they started looking into as they had never had a case of it but had heard of it in vet school. They eventually agreed with us and we started Boreal palatable zinc supplement at the end of September.
Within 10 days we started to see a difference. Our younger Sib gets 1.5 tsps every night with dinner and we started our older one, Loki in the picture, on it (he just turned 7 on Nov 13; he gets 0.5 tsp/day). The hair is growing back and our older dog has significantly cut down on his daily shedding. I can't thank you all enough for the information, his poor face was horrible and it was starting to spread to his groin. This forum is just so great!!! I included a link to what we bought at the bottom.

Thank you from our pack and Happy Thanksgiving.

https://www.amazon.com/Bor%C3%A9al-Palatable-Zinc-Supplement-Re-Sealable/dp/B01N2TYGE2

I was looking at that, but people said it has garlic in it and garlic is toxic to dogs?

Garlic is dose related "toxic". Small amounts are ok, large amounts can cause cause Heinz body hemolytic anemia. Small amounts are present in some dog foods. We eat a lot of garlic here and our guys get to lick out the pans and plates. Never a problem with their blood tests.

@Stray whether it has garlic or not it's the type of product that turns me off ... the second ingredient in the list of ingredients is "unknown" ... sorry, that's not something that's gonna work with me.

@aljones @stray https://borealpetfood.com/Dogs/Product/72 nothing unknown when you leave amazon and go to the actual website. But it looks ok to me. Garlic is only really bad if they get alot of it

Nicole Raslich wrote:

Our husky, who just turned 3 in August, developed the same lower lip rash...in August. We went to the vet, they said allergies, which is valid because he is allergic to bees and loves to forage in our garden. We tried Prednisone, worked while on it, rash came back within 3 says of finishing meds. Tried steroids again since...still bees in the garden and all over the yard in August. We had to board him in September for a family wedding so we used our brothers kennel, out of town as all the family dogs went to "jail" together. His face came out looking horrible, it was under the eye, around the nose, both sides of the lips. I happened to see this forum post about zinc deficiency so my husband and I started researching it. Back to the vet, tried an expensive steroid shot and I asked about the Zinc deficiency thing. I've used our vet for years and they've treated all our huskies so they started looking into as they had never had a case of it but had heard of it in vet school. They eventually agreed with us and we started Boreal palatable zinc supplement at the end of September.
Within 10 days we started to see a difference. Our younger Sib gets 1.5 tsps every night with dinner and we started our older one, Loki in the picture, on it (he just turned 7 on Nov 13; he gets 0.5 tsp/day). The hair is growing back and our older dog has significantly cut down on his daily shedding. I can't thank you all enough for the information, his poor face was horrible and it was starting to spread to his groin. This forum is just so great!!! I included a link to what we bought at the bottom.

Thank you from our pack and Happy Thanksgiving.

https://www.amazon.com/Bor%C3%A9al-Palatable-Zinc-Supplement-Re-Sealable/dp/B01N2TYGE2

I ordered this, but curious did you mean to say tbspn (tablespoon) instead of tspn (teaspoon) ? Teaspons are much smaller than tablespoons and the package says 1 tablespoon per 50 lbs