Hi!
Does anyone have ideas and experience with hair loss?
My pup Aspen has lost a lot of her coat on her neck. With my vet, we are treating her with Hypo-Thyroid condition and she has been on medication for 3 months - Hair has not grown back, her skin pigment is now black where she lost her hair and now her coat is thinning on the other side.
Her zinc levels were normal.
She is constantly scratching her bottom muzzle.
Any ideas out there?
thank you!!!

Are you familiar with alopecia x?

https://www.marvistavet.com/alopecia-x.pml

I dealt with this with my boy. It was a combination of two issues. First was low zinc. Not necessarily totally deficient but low enough to have an effect on his coat and the second was grain intolerance causing him to be itchy and literally scratch his fur out. These were both easily corrected with a change of food and a noticeable improvement in just over a week. He is now on Boreal Vital Red meat kibble - one of the highest zinc content foods on the market as well as being grain free. He also gets an added scoop of ZinPro zinc supplement. He's never had this issue since - he was around a year when this presented and is now going to be 9 in July. As for the darkening/blackening of the skin that is totally normal for normal breed dogs when their bare skin is exposed and not protected by fur. It's a natural response and nothing to worry about. HTH and all the best to you and your pup!

The itchy thing makes me think an allergy. Hair loss probably has more to do with thyroid but it could be compounded by an allergy.

We have the same thing with the black skin and hair loss.  Skin vet tried zinc with no changes.  I think Alopecia X is what our girl has.  She also has minor seasonal allergies but that itching isn’t  close to her hair loss/black skin. It’s not attractive and she’s losing her tail fur too, it doesn’t affect her quality of life thankfully.

Curious Sibmom if you are still feeding high zinc food w/supplements and grain free? Honestly this was the only thing that worked for us. Just adding a high zinc food wasn’t enough without the supplements and when he was still eating grains although there was some improvement not fully like now. It was a combination of two conditions I’ve since learned is not uncommon with the breed.

Not really well versed on alopecia x but symmetrical hairloss is almost always thyroid related.

The skin vet specialist didn’t say or suggest we change her food.  Only had us add Zinpro as a daily supplement for 3-4 months.  When there was no improvement they suggested microneedling and we said no thank you.  Perhaps I should look at a grain free food however we no longer have her on the Zinpro because we saw no changes.  Additionally, we found out from one of the breeders that they have seen like issues in at least one other dog from the litter as well as a dog from a different litter (same dad).


https://www.chewy.com/vedco-nutrived-zinpro-dietary/dp/158607?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=f&utm_content=VEDCO&utm_term=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ePR1djb8AIVcyCtBh2qwgw5EAQYASABEgLakvD_BwE

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/zinc-responsive-dermatosis-in-dogs

Toadzca wrote:

Curious Sibmom if you are still feeding high zinc food w/supplements and grain free? Honestly this was the only thing that worked for us. Just adding a high zinc food wasn’t enough without the supplements and when he was still eating grains although there was some improvement not fully like now. It was a combination of two conditions I’ve since learned is not uncommon with the breed.