Daphni's skin and hair loss

while i was at crufts on the saturday i asked at dorwest herbs what i could give her to help her dry skin on her chest and help the hair to (hopefully!) grow back..

they recommended evening primrose oil. now i dont know much about it, and they werent really that helpful in explaining why it would help, the woman wasnt english so it was a bit hard to understand what she was saying, plus the stall was quite busy.

what will evening primrose do? will it do the same as if i added salmon oil and vitamin E to her food as well? could i give the primrose oil on top of the salmon oil or is there no point?

her skin is quite red again, but this is because she hasnt been on the antihistamines while shes had pups, or the bionic biotic because i ran out. the bionic biotic certainly helped last time.

i also thought about adding keepers mix to the dogs diet too, just because people seem to rate it, and it cant hurt.

any thoughts?

What`s wrong with her skin?

shes always had fairly sensitive skin, but we think its that she allergic to the cat hair.. this is the only think we can put it down to, as when we were away from 3 weeks (when i stayed at the kennels) her skin was fine, but when i brought her home at weekends, her skin went a bit red again, the only difference being my house has 2 cats, where i was staying has no cats.. its only ever on her chest, nowhere else.

Not necessarily cat hair, could be the fabric of certain carpets or furnishings, the cleaning products used on the floor, the washing powder, quite a few variables. I think it's worth a vet trip to actually diagnose the problem, if you're trying to tackle an allergy with a food supplement you might not have all that much luck, might be better with antihistamines.

she was on antihistamines before, but i took her off them while she was in pup and feeding them.. she can go back on therm again soon as the pups dont feed from her that often with them being 6 weeks now, only another 2-4 weeks until they are off to their new homes.

What`s the chances of passing on her skin problems to her puppies?

TBH I don't want to cause an argument but I also thought this. I would never have bred from this dog knowing she had skin problems.

I don't think EPO can help with an allergy but it can help with general dryness and scurfiness. It was the first thing my dog was put on when he had a skin problem although it did turn out to be an allergy which he grew out of it eventually. I gave it to all my dogs until one was diagnosed with epilepsy and I found out it can be a trigger - at which point I stopped giving it to all of them!

Their coats are all great now since I changed them onto Arden Grange food so I wouldn't bother again.

When I took her to the vet he said that the problem could be hormonal related not an allergy, because of when it seems to flare up. After talking to other crested breeders (not just the one I bought her from) they said bitches do sometimes suffer with hair loss or or itchiness before and after seasons, and that having a litter calms the problem down. I have been assured it won't pass to puppies, as it's not a genetic condition.

Lets hope so, would be a shame if her puppies had to suffer the same.