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dog has skin like leather please help

Wrome

I bought a 2 year old male yorkie and his hair was so matted he actually had what looked like scabes on his skin. I took him to my groomer and she said he had lice but she didn''t see any. She said the scab looking things where the eggs that were so caked on. She sugested we cut him really short and for me to treat him. Well When we shaved him his skin was like leather. It feels just like leather. It is so dry that if you pinch his skin together it will actually crack and bleed. I have had dogs all my life and never seen anything like this before. He isn''t sick or anything. I just have no idea what to do for him. Could someone please help me.

Optional Information:
Age: 2; Male; Breed: yorkie

Already Tried:
I have treated for lice, I have treated for mange. He has been shaved completely.

• Veteran Advisor Angela Spar says:

  March 23rd, 2008 at 06:40 AM

  Sorry to hear of your dogs problems. Did your vet verify that this was indeed a lice case? Did your vet give you treatments for this or did you use over the counter meds? and what treatments did you use? IS he itching? and are you itching?

   

  When a coat is badly matted, the skin underneath will become very fragile and easily damaged ( it often becomes very thin), however it would be unusual for it to crack and bleed. Your groomer was right in that the coat needed to be shaved down. However I think your dog needs to be checked over by your vet to see if there are any other problems and for a full skin work up. THis may involve looking at hairs under the microcope to see if there are any other parasites, and most likely they will do a skin scrape to check for other skin parasites such as scabies mites or demodectic mange. Please make an appointment for him if you can on monday, he should be seen sooner rather than letting this wait to see what happens.

  Good luck
  , let me know how he gets on.  Dr  spar

   

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