hairfalling

Your Pet: Where Is My Dog’s Hair Falling Out? Cali has begun to develop hair loss. Allison, Cali's caretaker first started to notice clumps of Cali's hair around the house about four weeks ago and thought she was just shedding a bit heavily. Over that time, the hair clumps have begun to multiply and now Cali is visibly naked especially so on the back end of her body. Allison, while tired of cleaning up wads of hair in her house, is more concerned with what might be causing Cali to lose her hair. Oh, I should mention Cali is a mixed breed dog with lots of hair or at least she used to have lots of hair. To begin with I must admit I am going to have to do some major hedging on this case. There are simply too many possibilities to address here when we consider a possible cause for Cali's hair loss. Instead, I will approach her case using a flow chart technique to try to narrow down the choices. At the top of the chart we have our problem/symptom which is hair loss. First we need to determine if Cali's hair loss is simply a matter of shedding and therefore normal hair loss or is it excessive. Since Allison reports areas of bare skin on Cali's body, I am going to assume her hair loss is pathologic. From there we need to decide whether the hair is being lost due to traumatic removal (I made that phrase up) or falling out of its own accord. There is a rather simple visual method to determine whether or not the hair loss is traumatic especially if you do not see your companion chewing out or otherwise removing its hair Believe me, there are cases when the companion is quite stealth about their scratching behavior and caretakers are entirely ignorant about it as a result. Simply look at your companion's skin where the hair is missing. Are the hairs broken or is the skin entirely devoid of any remnants of hair? If they're broken, there is trauma involved if there are no remaining hairs, it has fallen out on its own. Hair loss in virtually all the types of animals I see in my practice is most commonly due to removal by the companion. This is usually because they itch and as a result, scratch, rub or bite at themselves resulting in the loss of hair, hence the newly coined and copyrighted phrase, “traumatic removal.” (It's not really copyrighted). Hair falling out without apparent cause is much less common. The causes for non-trauma related hair loss are usually hormonal. Diseases such as hypothyroidism, Cushings disease, diabetes and others can lead to hair loss. These diseases usually have other symptoms associated with them and hair loss is not one of the early symptoms. However it sometimes is the first symptom noticed by caretakers. To diagnose hormonal causes for hair loss, we usually use one or more blood tests and once the process is pinned down to a definitive answer, appropriate treatment can be initiated. With treatment and sometimes depending on the disease as it occurs in that particular patient, the hair will, over time, grow back. It may however be a different color. Hair loss due to trauma usually occurs as a result of prurtitis. These patients itch. So what might cause our companions to itch. I could write a book on that subject. We start with the most common stuff and work our way down a very long list. In Cali's case, we are not sure what type of hair loss she is experiencing, but odds are it's traumatic. She needs to be examined for possible causes. Maybe Cali has something simple such as fleas. Perhaps she has an allergic condition. She might have mange. That’s only the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to possible causes for traumatic hair loss. One thing's for sure, there is an underlying cause and Cali needs that answer.