Skin problems

Looking for some info.

A friend has a predominantly white EBT which suffers from outbreaks of skin lesions for which she has to be treated with steroids. Does anyone know if this is a common complaint in mainly white/pied EBTs and if so is it a problem in staffies?

sadly i can't say as i've never owned a white/pied dog, but as far as i'm aware it's mostly dilute colours such as blues etc that are more likely to suffer, but even then most live out they're lives happily with no problems

it is common in staffies too , i have white pied and we have to give him a hypersensitive vaccine every month , he was also tested for allergies and unfortunately he cannot have off the shelf dog food of any kind , he was very allergic to maize (corn) , lamb , beef and duck ...also many grasses....

the only advice i can give is to try to find what is causing the problem ..steroids should only be used forr short term , piriton is also very good but make sure you use only piriton ,

you could get your friend to get his dog allergy tested it cost us about 200 or so pounds to get done but it was worth it ,

As mentioned already, its a problem in many Staffy's (blues usually being more likely to get it but the breed as a whole is predisposed to skin problems).

Skin problems can be an owner and a veterinarians nightmare as they are quite complicated to diagnose and usually require a variety of 'trials' to rule out one cause after another.

The most common culprits - fleas, mange (either Sarcoptes or Demodex), secondary skin infections (bacteria or yeast) and ear infections/mites are usually the first to be ruled out by appropriate treatment. Then its often a food trial (novel protein and carbohydrate only for 8-12 weeks) and then they move on to either allergy testing, diagnosis of atopy etc. Unfortunately, a lot of owners get fed up with their pets chronic itchiness and abandon the diagnosis and simply resort to preds.

Preds have a huge array of rather serious side effects when used in the long term so its usually the best bet to actually come to a diagnosis, however long it takes, and only use the preds for short 'itch busting' doses.