Black Skin Spots - Not Pigment

[MaltsGalore]

Hello,

This is Jill:



Excuse the cowlick. She was just dried after her bath. She is 13 year old 5 pound firecracker in excellent health. Last year she got a bald spot on her shoulder after her rabies vaccine. Over several months the bald spot rotated around from the side to the front closer to her chest. The skin on the bald spot was very pink and soft, but she started scratching it and would occasionally make it bleed. Jill has tons of allergies so we have to be careful what to feed her, and she has seasonal allergies too, so we're not positive if the bald spot itself was itchy or if she was just itchy in general. But we started putting a t-shirt on her and that stopped her from scratching the spot open. After a while some black spots appearing on the bald spot that look kind of like mildew. Some of them will loosen off after a bath and you can scratch them off with your nail. The vet wasn't too concerned a few months ago when there were just a couple spots. I have different kinds of shampoo that I had for other dogs over the years and I tried them. Ketochlor (which is awesome for red mange and fungus) didn't do anything so I tried Keratolux. I tried it at the height of fall weed flowering here when she was itching a lot and the Keratolux helped that, but it didn't touch the black spots. I didn't know if it was okay to use the Keratolux continuously so I stopped and started using anm pharm Comfort Shampoo we got from the vet. She isn't itching at all now, but the black spots have gotten worse:



The photo makes it sort of look like red mange but it doesn't look like that in person. We'll take her to the vet this week but I was just wondering if any of you have seen this before. I searched several forums but only found discussions on pigmentation which we totally understand (we've had many of these little creatures for years). One of my boys also has very few of these black spots in his private area. Jill's t-shirt never gets wet. She gets bathed once a week and receives a clean shirt after each bath. She is pad trained and rarely goes outside due to her allergies.

Thanks, MaltsGalore

[edelweiss]

Have you had it scraped & sent to the lab for an evaluation? That would be my first try.

[Sylie]

My 14 year old bichon has a skin condition that seems similar. It started around a skin tag that she started licking and just spread all over. The vet didn't know for sure what it was. We were giving her prednisone and anti-biotics and bathing her with medicated shampoo. Personally, I believe it is an over growth of yeast. It smells fowl. I stopped the meds and just bathe her in Malaseb shampoo twice a week. I give her probiotics and keep simple carbs out of her diet. I haven't been able to cure her, but manage to keep it under control. It doesn't bother her. At first she used to lick it which made it worse and added a bacterial infection to the mix.

Let us know what your vet says.

[MaltsGalore]

The vet wasn't much help. After some discussion he admitted he didn't know what it was and thought it might be related to allergy. He suggested I give her Benedryl. There was no change after a week.

[Kathleen]

Jill is just a cutie! Hard to believe that she is 13. She looks like a puppy! Must be the twinkle in her eye.
I am sorry she is having this problem. I don't have any experience with a similar condition, but since it started with the rabies vaccine, if it were me, I would try to do some research to see if there are any similar conditions caused by the vaccine. Vets dont seem to usually want to consider this, but it sure seems that vaccines can have long standing effects. There is a lot of good info on the dogs4dogs.com site.
You may have already been down this path, but I thought I would mention it.
I hope Jill has some relief soon.

[Kathleen]

I just looked at the dogs4dogs site. Sorry I cant figure out how to add the link. Dogs can have skin disease reactions to the rabies shot, including hair loss (alopecia) and hyperpigmentation.
If you go to dogs4dogs.com/truth4dogs.html there is a link of rabies vaccine reactions. If you click on the one for skin diseases it takes you to a list of articles/studies. Maybe a good starting point for reading to see if it sounds like what Jill has.

[Ladysmom]

Originally Posted by Kathleen

I just looked at the dogs4dogs site. Sorry I cant figure out how to add the link. Dogs can have skin disease reactions to the rabies shot, including hair loss (alopecia) and hyperpigmentation.
If you go to dogs4dogs.com/truth4dogs.html there is a link of rabies vaccine reactions. If you click on the one for skin diseases it takes you to a list of articles/studies. Maybe a good starting point for reading to see if it sounds like what Jill has.

Rabies Shots | Truth4Dogs

[Leila'sMommy]

If you think it could be fungal, I wonder if you could try Lotrimin? I've never had this experience, so I don't know...and don't know if it is ok for dogs to use. But just a thought.


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[Furbabies mom]

I have nothing to offer here, but your little one is sure cute! I hope that you find an answer .

[SweetMalteseAngels]

Mimi had a reaction that was similar when she had her first rabies shot. There was a bald spot in the area and little tiny scabs all over in that area but i didnt look as bad as your picturrs. It didnt to away for months. I was weary about giving her rabies shot again at 1 year of age. She e need up getting the rabies shot under supervision bu strangely enough, she showed no reaction the second time. Go figure.