Today, I had a 7 month old German Shepherd come in because she was loosing hair over her face. She was doing so much scratching she would keep her owners up at night.
When I walked into the room, our happy Gemma, looked rather pathetic. Her entire face was bald with scaly flakes of irritated skin. We proceeded to do skin cytology and skin scrapings. The diagnosis literally waved its legs at us through the microscope. Demodectic mange (aka Demodicosis).
All dogs get these mites from their mothers but if the dog’s immune system becomes compromised, they can start to multiply and cause disease. Generally, this mange cannot be spread to other dogs (unless other dogs are immunocompromised). The two most common forms of Demodicosis are localized (small scaly bald patches on the face) and generalized (involves large sections of the animal and the secondary bacterial infections are itchy).
Gemma is lucky because young dogs are more likely to naturally gain control of the disease. To help her fight this disease we started her on antibiotics and Ivermectin. We were able to start the Ivermectin today as there is a very low risk she will be sensitive to it. It cannot be used in Collies, Shetland Sheepdogs, Australian Shepherds and Sheepdogs unless a specific blood test is performed to check for ivermectin sensitivity. To determine when we stop treating, we will need to get two skin scrapings two weeks apart that are negative and then one more skin scraping a month later to make sure there won’t be a relapse.
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