Help For Yorkie with Dog Dry Skin

by Mahale and Some Suggestons From our Veterinarian

My 9 year old female Yorkie has several dry, crusty and flaking spots on her back and few on her chest. They must not itch since she seldom scratches. I have bathed her with T-Gel shampoo and an oatmeal shampoo and even tried over counter hot spot medicine. Her diet consists Purina One Beyond and cooked chicken breast meat with one fish oil tablet. I also have a two year old Yorkie and she does not have this problem. Any suggestions?

Vet Suggestion for Treating Dog Dry Skin

Hello,

The list of potential causes for your Yorkie’s skin problems is quite long, and I’m afraid I can’t really narrow it down based on a description alone. If your dog were my patient, I would start the diagnostic process with a physical exam, and unless the answer was obvious (e.g., fleas), I’d then move on to a skin scraping to look for mites, skin cytology to check for infection, and then a fungal culture for ringworm.

The test for ringworm can take two or three weeks to complete, so while we were waiting for those results I would treat anything that I diagnosed with the other tests, perhaps prescribe a broad spectrum parasiticide like Revolution to deal with some of the mites that can be hard to find on skin scrapings, and pursue any other leads that I might have.

If the fungal culture came back negative and your dog was still not better, I’d consider biopsying a few of the areas and sending them to a pathologist for review.

If you first want to try something at home, applying a few doses of Duoxo Seborrhea Spot-On wouldn’t hurt. It helps to restore the lipid barrier of the skin, controls scaling, and can reduce the numbers of yeast and bacteria on the skin.

Good luck,

Jennifer Coates, DVM