My Chessie, Kingston, is losing hair around his neck area. I was wondering if this is normal or maybe a cause of something. The area of concern is all around his neck from his head to shoulders.

At first we thought that it had something to do with his collar, but he appears to be losing hair everywhere on his neck. He has dry flaky skin and is bald on two spots with the rest of his neck losing hair at an equal pace. We spend a lot of time in the river and at two of our local lakes. Was wondering if he might have picked up anything there.

Had his neck looked at by the vet, but he said the classic "we'll wait and see."

Has anyone had anything like this with their chessie? Is this normal or could he have picked something up?

Did the Vet do a skin scrapping/sample?? Could be from contracting something in water (parasites, bacteria, etc) or from an autoimmune disease such as Hypothroidism. Kingston is about 1 1/2 years old now???

Did the Vet run blood work? I'd recommend a Full Thyroid Panel (not just a T4 level).
Endocrine disorders will cause those symptoms (Addison's, Cushings, Thyroidism, etc).

What is the skin like - color, appearance. Hot? dry? Red? Itchy? Oozing? etc???

Charlie

Edited to Add. Is Kingston showing signs of "discomfort" or being uneasy??
Drinking/eating more or less? More/less energy and stamina?
Mood, personality, behavior changes?

These are important to diagnose...

The vet did not run any tests yet. He simply said that he didn't know what it was and that we'd wait to see what happened.

He said that we have the options as you've suggested and I guess we'll have to get the vet to check some of them out. I was just hoping that I could narrow my options down so that I don't have my vet checking for everything under the sun.

His skin is dry and flaking. He scratches at his neck once in a while, but I think that that is his scratching his collar. It also looks like he has some pimples or bites. His hair is getting very thin and we're starting to wonder what is happening.

Kingston is 1 1/2 years old now. I was wondering if this hair loss was a result of him getting older and new, thicker hair coming in, but I don't think that that's the case.

If there are "pimples" it could be a staph infection. That will make them have dry skin and hairloss.

If not a staph infection then a skin scraping should be done to check for mites.

Haircoats are thin right now in Wisconsin because of blowing coat.

We had Kingston checked out by our vet. They did a skin scrape and it was not mites. They also did a biopsy and have sent it out to a lab to be tested. The results are not in yet, but I hope we can find out what is wrong with our dog and his hair loss.

Add Fish oil to the pups diet.
You should see results in two-three weeks.
Also, make sure you are combing the dog regularly to remove the old under coat.

If the dog is training or playing in water make sure they are completely dry before you put them up for the night.

Skin scraping's usually don't show up the mites that are scabies...its the bad mange because of it being so contagious but the easiest to cure. maybe you should question your vet on this. It is treated by 2 Ivomectin injections 10 days apart.
Just a thought!

Joyce

The results are in.

It turns out that Kingston has demodex. The vet did a skin scrape and did not find it. Which leads me to one question...Why didn't he find it in a scrape when I've read that this is how it is found?

So, we did a biopsy and sent out the samples to a lab. Thankfully, we got an answer as to why Kingston is losing his hair. And it looks like we helped the mites out by having Kingston's Kennel in the darker part of the house, the basement.

Thankfully, the demodex explains why Kingston lost his oily coat. He was never itchy either and seems as if nothing is the matter.

Does anyone have any comments on demodex and whether it can be a common problem with chessies?

Glad you finally got our answer.

As for how come they didn't find it on a scraping, it may be because they didn't scrape deep enough. The mites live below the skin surface and you need to pinch the skin and roll it to bring the critters up and scrape til you get blood. If not generalized then it maybe hard to get ones on a scrape.

We put them on oral ivermectin to treat.

Good luck.