What Skin Diseases Affect Dogs, and What Are the Symptoms?
📝 Summary
Dog skin problems fall into four types — fungal, bacterial, allergic, and parasitic — and show as itching, scabs, scaling, papules, redness, and hair loss. Watch for lumps, shedding, over-grooming, itching, and sunburn or irritation, and see a vet for diagnosis.
1 Skin Lumps and Growths
Warts, cysts, tumors, and abscesses feel hard and raised. Warts are common in older dogs — pink, hard-rooted, dark-pigmented. A melanotic lump is a pigmented malignant tumor, while the egg-shaped soft lump growing slowly in old dogs is usually a benign lipoma.
2 Hair Loss
Local shedding can come from ringworm, external parasites, hormone imbalance, or scleroderma, and also from mange mites. Some breeds, like Collies, lose patches from sunburn. Thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, or ovarian hormone disorders can cause whole-body hair loss.
3 Excessive Licking
A dog with dermatitis, an impacted anal gland, or external parasites licks its skin to clean a wound or remove debris, and may also scratch constantly with a front paw.
4 Itching
External parasites, allergies, internal disease, or self-biting can all trigger inflammation. Most itching comes from fleas. Sometimes a dog itches from inhaling pollen or dust, or from contact with certain shampoos or plants, or freshly clipped skin. Kidney or liver disease can also cause itchy skin.
5 Sunburn, Allergy, and Irritation
Allergy or a small object on the skin — like a grass seed caught between the toes — can inflame or abscess the skin. With dermatitis (pyoderma) the area reddens and oozes; bacteria also multiply in skin folds and cause dermatitis.
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