skin problems with Blue dobermans, how to prevent

It is true. Dilutes have more skin/coat issues than the others. These are the reasons why they are more unpopular. Not many people would intentionally want to deal with it. It gets worse as they mature. A lady that I train with has a blue that is completely bald head to tail. She is only 3 yrs. old and has tried multiple supplements to try to help her retain some of her hair. It still fell out. Their coats are also naturally thinner than the blacks or reds.

I feed mine a high quality diet to give them a good start. The only supplements I use is fish oil and vit. E. Mainly because my cardiologist recommended it for Ashers heart. He said it couldn't hurt, so why not try it. The vit. E for the dry skin, esp. in the winter.

I have been fairly lucky so far with mine. Asher started to thin this year with his thyroid. It is slowly coming back in and the vet thinks it might come in fully. I love him regardless what he looks like. That should be what is important. Right now we are fighting a staph battle. Just at the tail end of it now. It has been 3 yrs since he has had a staph infection. There is not a way to prevent what is inevitable. If it is going to happen, it will happen. Just learn to accept it.

I would probably get the bumps checked out though by your vet. They might be staph. Just be aware that the typical blue signs like thinning coat and such might be other health problems also. It is always important to get him checked by your vet to make sure that they aren't IMO.

The bumps on your puppy sound like a case of staph. It isn't just the dilute colors (blue & fawn) that have problems with staph--it's common in Doberman puppies of all colors. Has more to do with an immature immune system than anything else.

But the dilute colors do have more coat and skin problems than blacks and reds. CDA which causes balding of the dilute dog is specifically related to the color and I've seen blues who were virtually bald at very young ages and I've seen a few over the years that maintain their coats.

The vet literature says that around 95% of blues will have CDA to one degree or another and just under 80% of the fawns. I am much more careful to treat for staph aggressively with my fawn dog than I normally do with a black or did with a red. Since they are likely to have problems anyway I prefer to treat early rather than run the risk of scarring from staph and the loss of follicles themselves due to that sort of scarring.

Someone else said that they didn't think they would feed Beneful and I agree--the ProPlan by Purina is a better grade of food than Beneful--I think I'd have left him on it.

The web site that was posted has a lot of good information on maintaining a blue (or fawn) coat--Jim Anable (who's site it is) has had at least one blue Doberman for as long as he's had Dobermans (a good many years) and some of his dogs have managed to retain their coats. Obviously part of it has to do with heredity but part is the actual management of the coat itself.

There is a Doberman list on Yahoogroups called BlueDobes you might be interested in. They talk about a variety of things but most of the people posting have dilute dogs and are willing to answer questions about dilute Dobes.

I can't remember the exact percentages of colors that are likely to show up in the general Doberman population except for fawn. Fawns represent about 6% of the Dobermans born--blues (to the best of my recollection) represent slightly more than twice that--around 15% I think. They are definitely less common--you'll find that even with cropped ears and a docked tail that a lot of people won't recognize your pup as a Doberman. The most common guess is Weimaraner.

I don't have a blue dobe, mine is red, but I know that both of my dogs hair and skin are much better since they have been eating Canidae. I do believe that diet has alot to do with hair and skin condition. I started our rat terrier out on a low quality dog food, and she itched and she shed like CRAZY. When we got our dobe, we switched to Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul, which is a good food. The only complaint I had about it was that they pooped around four times a day, but their coat really shined up, and shedding reduced tremendously. I switched to Canidae about three months ago, and now they only poop twice a day, but coats still look great and shedding is still minimal. We get compliments all the time about their coats. I am not trying to tell you what to feed your dog, Jerome, so please don't think that. I am only saying what has helped my dogs. I have a friend with a blue dobe and a red dobe, and he's feeding Canidae, and so far his dobes are doing great. There are lots of good dog foods to choose from. You can also put raw egg on your dogs food to help their skin. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all of the great info and replies! So should we consider switching back to the ProPlan? What other comparable brands should we shop around for? We had switched to the Beneful as it was cheaper and made by the same brand, Purina. We were paying 25 bucks or more for a medium sized bag of ProPlan and Kilo was flying through it. We had also chose the Beneful because it was softer and chewier. We had Kilo on a 3 meal per day (3 cups per day) schedule and have since changed it down to 2meal per day (2 cups twice per day).

I am scheduled to take Kilo to get his ears posted on Thursday (we've been massaging them every chance we get) and will inquire again about the bumps that I am seeing along his back and neck (bumps look white) as it is bothering me. Initially I thought it was flea bites or something from running in the back yard. Kilo has a tendancy to scratch at his ear and neck and this was before the ear crop, I figured that it was dry skin. How is the staph treated? How long can we expect to post his ears? We got the medium cut for hopes that we wouldn't need to post as long or aggressively as dobes with the long show cut.

Thanks in advance,

Jerome

I would just talk to the vet about the bumbs, and if it is staph, obviously the vet will discuss how to treat it. I agree with with MrDesi about diet being a big factor in keeping the coat and skin healthy. Maybe you could supplement your dog's food with raw if you can't do a total raw diet. I have read on this board as well as others about how dog's coats improve dramatically with a raw diet. Just FYI, a good dog food site is dogfoodanalysis.com. You can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "read the reviews," and check out dog foods and their ratings. It has five star ratings down to one star ratings, and they tell why they give the foods a certain rating. Also the people on this forum have given lots of great advice. You were talking about the price of ProPlan, well the price of Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul is about a dollar per pound. Canidae is not much more than that. I get a 20 pound bag for $26.00, and it lasts about a month feeding two dogs. You will feed less if you feed a premium dog food, so it actually saves money in the long run. I feed my dobe 3 cups a day, 1 1/2 cups morning and 1 1/2 cups at night.