Dog Skin Fungal Disease (Dermatophytosis)
📝 Summary
Most dog skin fungal disease is caused by Microsporum canis, whose spores survive for years in the environment, so infection is stubborn and contagious. Treatment combines topical and oral antifungals with medicated baths, and recovery takes one to four weeks depending on severity.
1 Cause and Resilience
Dog skin fungus is usually Microsporum canis; sometimes Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Trichophyton verrucosum, or Microsporum gypseum. The fungi are extremely hardy — they survive months in sunlight or below 0°C, and spores in a sick dog’s skin scales on kennels, tools, and posts can stay infectious for five years. They damage the coat and skin and cause inflammatory injury.
2 Symptoms
The skin is broadly red, with many nodules on the back, neck, back of the ears, lower lip, and base of the tail; the tail has crusts that, when lifted, reveal ulcers and purulent discharge with a foul odor.
3 Treatment
Topically, remove scale and crusts and clear loose hair, then apply Fuante, clotrimazole, or miconazole ointment once or twice daily. For immunity, inject a fungal vaccine at 0.1 ml/kg and, to prevent secondary infection, cephalexin 6 mg/kg subcutaneously once daily for 3 days, plus antifungal shampoo baths.
Orally, terbinafine tablets 10–20 mg/kg (double the dose for severe or first-time cases) mixed into food for 2 weeks. Aksu (12.5 mg/kg, twice daily; double if hard to control) runs about 5–7 days or 48 hours past symptom relief, and up to ~28 days for chronic dermatitis. Supplement vitamin E and a B-complex twice daily for 14 days.
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