It is easy to see that your dog is having a skin problem, as you will notice him scratching excessively, chewing at areas, and licking affected area. You may observe rashes and scabs, inflammation, and redness, flakey irritations, swellings, skin discoloration.
Your dog could experience hair loss, lesions, bleeding and pus can occur as well as circular patches on paws and face. He can become manic, even rubbing himself against anything to relieve it.
Common Causes
Fleas can be a common and can be the cause of a dog skin problem. The poop they leave behind on your dog cause irritation and in some instances, the saliva they leave behind give your dog an allergic reaction.
Food allergies. Sometimes some dogs do not take well to certain foods, commercial dog foods can sometimes not be suitable to some dogs as beef, soy, corn, chicken, and wheat can be an allergen to some dogs. Colorings in dog food may affect them also.
Ringworm. This is a fungal infection that is infectious and causes scaly patches and cause inflammation.
Seasonal allergies. This is caused by such as pollens and grasses in summer as well as dust, mites, trees weed and mold.
Sarcopic mange. A skin disease cause by the scabies mite which gives dog symptoms similar to an allergic reaction.
Ear mites and lice can be a cause of dog skin problems.
Shampoos. These and other grooming products can irritate your dog’s skin.
Hormonal and metabolic. These can cause skin discoloration and deteriorate the condition of the fur.
Skin infections. These occur when damaged skin caused by other disorders allowing bacterial and yeast infections to get into the damaged skin.
Get help
Do not waste time trying to diagnose these conditions yourself too much. If it gets worse and does not go away, then it is time to take your dog to the vet. Do not leave your dog to suffer any longer than it needs too.
Most of these problems are preventable by feeding your dog good quality dog food and regular bathing and brushing.
Regular flea prevention treatment should be administered as recommended by your vet. They can provide drop on treatment usually monthly or you can purchase these products yourself available in most pet stores.
Minimize mites at home by regular vacuuming. Always use shampoos recommended by your vet.
Treatments
The vet will diagnose the kind of skin problem your dog has and based upon their findings will treat your dog. If food allergy is suspected then he may arrange an elimination diet for your dog, which simply means to withdraw risky ingredients to his diet and if the condition improves, then slowly reintroduce certain food to decipher which particular allergen in the food is causing the problem.
A simpler way is possibly to only feed your dog non allergenic food for life. Fleas and ticks can easily enough be treated and drop on spots a simple enough way to avoid the problem reoccurring.
There are also natural products on the market that can help your dog avoid these skin problems.
Your vet can give your dog allergy shots as a way of treating and preventing future breakouts.
For allergies, your vet may give your dog an anti-biotic and give you shampoos to help soothe the condition.
For bacterial skin problems, they can give a course of anti-biotic normally for about 4 weeks.
For fungal infection, he may well take a culture and if a positive result will treat with either, griseofulvin, lime sulfur dips, itraconazole or miconazole.