Hello This is my first post on this forum so hopefully I do it correctly, I'm not sure if this should be here or in nutrition/ raw....

I am a bit long winded but here is the back ground....
My 10 year old mal/sibe x has had dry dandruffy skin on her back (where her tail touches her back) for about the last 3 years. She was switched to raw about 1 1/2 years ago and it helped for awhile but last month I noticed an area that was crusty & had a green discharge, about 2 inches by 1 inch long across the same area.


She had recently had a bath using furminator shampoo and air dryed. It was quite warm outside and she won't let me near her with a blow dryer. Her hair is very very thick in that area. I shaved the area and because I am a nurse I hesitated to go to the vet right away, so treated it with a natural skin cleanser from the vet (can't remember the name at the moment) and applied coconut oil. We ended up at the vet because our foster dog bit her, so, the vet had a look at her back and gave us fuciderm and antibiotics x 2 weeks (more for the skin gash but also for the back), she said it was probably dermatitis or pyoderma from the bath and because it stayed moist & I brushed her vigorously.

Anyways, I was brushing her again a few days ago and found another area beside her tail that was super dense and had a crusty patch. I shaved that area too and cleansed with hibitane and appied fuciderm until the redness and weeping cleared up. I have now switched back to coconut oil applied daily.

So my question is really regarding the dry skin and clearing that up. We give her salmon oil capsules daily (just switched to liquid Grizzley Salmon Oil supplement today). And I am going to up her fish intake. She gets raw eggs, a few when I remember, and a wide variety of raw meat and bones and veggies (no starches because she has arthritis in her hips). Her coat is a bit prone to clumping but is very thick, soft and shines.

Anyone have any suggestions or advice to help get her skin into better shape?

Thanks in advance!

My husky has had this problem on her ears for quite sometime. There are certain times of year when it seems to be a little worst, but the vet has not been able to find anything that is causing it and nothing I do seems to make it any better. The good thing is that it doesn't seem to bother her much. :/

My vet said that huskies do tend to get skin Lupus quite often and it's treated with a steroid - however treating her for that would counter act the novox for her arthritis. heh!! Not sure if your furbaby is having the same skin issue as mine...but I haven't found anything that helps.

I'm not too sure about dry skin specifically, but Callie is fighting mange so she's got a lot of bald patches that are occasionally tough and dry. I've read that rubbing a drop or two of cooking oil on the spots will soften the skin (and kill mange mites, but as this isn't your issue, don't worry about that). I tried this last night on Callie and she definitely seems a little better today, but I know she licked most of it off. In my searching, I also came across something about adding local -no store bought- honey to the spots. If you want to google that to see if it'll help. I don't remember exactly what it was supposed to do to help Callie's spots but as I don't know how to get honey other than in the store, I ignored that.

You seem to be doing most of the things I know to be good for skin and coat.

It would be easier to treat if you knew what the cause was. My long coat chi, Glory, has had skin problems since we adopted her. Her vet said she has seborrheic dermatitis and gave us some ideas and products for treating/preventing it. Glory's outbreaks of rashes, dry skin, bleeding and all that mainly occured on her lower back near the base of the tail. Prior to finally addressing the problem with the vet we had just given her coconut oil in her food, cortizone cream on the site when it would flare up, and would bathe her in Bio-Groom oatmeal shampoo & conditioner. The problem would come and go regularly. After addressing it with her vet she has been put on Douxo Seborrhea shampoo along with Coconut oil supplement, Allergena allergy drops, and Damp Heat herbal antibiotic pills. We started all this in December and she hasn't had another outbreak since. I don't know if any of this would help your dog but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Something that helped Shey's coat a lot was Mrs. Allens Shed Stop (think it has a new name now) but it's an oil supplement. It kept her coat so soft and really helped with the shedding too - I may have to start that again!!