Three words for you: Dachshund. Pattern. Baldness.
There’s really no way to introduce this delicately, so I decided to just spell it right out without beating around the bush. You may be chuckling to yourself already, thinking, “Is this chick for real?” But in truth, Dachshund Pattern Baldness is a very real medical affliction and is no laughing matter. Well, it is pretty funny to us humans, but still, emotionally trying on the dachshund.
Merlot and Moses both went a whole year of life with no symptoms of pattern baldness. My mom’s dachshund, Bella was the first to start showing signs, mind you she is five years old. It first began with minor hair loss on the under breast. We thought since that’s the general area that drags the ground the most, it was just from general “wear and tear.” Then, the hair loss spread all throughout her breast, chest, and stomach. Soon her tail had lost so much hair, it looked like a rat’s tail – very unattractive on a dachshund!
My mom had Bella tested for everything from cancer to thyroid problems to vitamin deficiencies, fungus and beyond. All tests came back negative and Bella continue to bald. I always just pointed and laughed at her, and made fun of my parents for being bad dachshund caregivers to have let this happen! Then…it happened to my dachshund.
Merlot was first; she has this tiny patch on her under breast that is just thinning away. It hasn’t really spread – it’s just in that one small area (the shape of a diamond):
Then came Moses. Moses has it bad. I first noticed it the other day when this chest bone (the manly adam apple-y one in the front under his throat) had almost no hair on it. The skin is as SOFT as a baby’s bottom and it is not red or irritated on either of the dogs (and they don’t itch it or anything!).
(You can see where I probably didn't notice it before because the hair he DOES have is kind of like a comb-over! HAHA! Ahem. Sorry, Moses.)
And you can imagine Moses’ horror. His pride and joy is his hair. Ever since he was a puppy he’s been prancing around the house showing us how he grew a new chest hair here or tail hair there. I feel so bad for the little fella. He’s extremely sensitive and so we can’t talk about it around him. He’d kill me if he knew about this blog post!
(A very sad MoMo!)Here is some information I found on DPB:
Related terms: pinnal alopecia, saddle alopecia
What is pattern baldness?
With this condition there is gradual, symmetric thinning and loss of hair (alopecia) that usually begins by 6 to 9 months of age and progresses slowly until the affected areas are completely bald. Areas of hair loss are not itchy but may become darkened and scaly over time.
There are 3 different patterns of baldness that occur. In the most common syndrome, dachshunds and other breeds (mostly female animals) experience hair loss around the temples, underneath the neck, and on the chest, abdomen and back of the thighs. In dachshunds with pinnal alopecia (mostly male), the hair is gradually lost from both ears. Saddle alopecia occurs in American water spaniels and Portuguese water dogs, with hair loss underneath the neck, on the back of the thighs, and on the tail.
How is pattern baldness inherited?
Unknown.
What breeds are affected by pattern baldness?
Dachshunds are most commonly affected, and the condition is also seen in Boston terriers, Chihuahuas, greyhounds, Italian greyhounds, Manchester terriers, and whippets. Saddle alopecia occurs in American water spaniels and Portuguese water dogs.
For many breeds and many disorders, the studies to determine the mode of inheritance or the frequency in the breed have not been carried out, or are inconclusive. We have listed breeds for which there is a consensus among those investigating in this field and among veterinary practitioners, that the condition is significant in this breed.
What does pattern baldness mean to you and your dog?
Aside from the areas of hair loss, your dog's coat will be normal. There is usually no discomfort associated with this condition.
How is pattern baldness diagnosed?
The condition is diagnosed through clinical examination and ruling out other causes of hair loss.
How is pattern baldness treated?
There is no treatment to reverse the hair loss.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS DISORDER, PLEASE SEE YOUR VETERINARIAN.
Resources: Scott, D.W., Miller, W.H., Griffin, C.E. 1995. Muller and Kirk's Small Animal Dermatology. p. 777 W.B. Saunders Co., Toronto. The HotDog Blog
Do you have a dachshund that suffers from DPB??? How are you helping him/her cope!?
Thank you for reading and I hope this helps someone out there who has been going through what we’ve been going through!!
Bridget Marie
www.NumbersNotInvited.com
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44 comments:
my maggie is going bald on her chest and stomach. at first, i was very upset (it started three years ago), but the balding seemed to slow down. i was picturing a fully hairless weiner at first - ahhh! :)
I don't have a dachshund, but my Lucy is going OK in the hair department, as of now. However, one of my professors had a dachshund named Sissie. She was completely bald on her chest and stomach by the time I graduated school, and he would dress her up in little sweaters for the winter.
Good luck! I'm happy that it is nothing worse, and the hair loss doesn't bother them at all!
I have a male smooth dachshund who may very well be balding in the 'most common' areas. It's funny, but because it began to appear as the weather got warmer, I attributed it to normal shedding of a winter coat and didn't worry much about it. He's not got much to lose, I know. Now I have something else to ponder - is Bosko going bald? Eep!
Yeah, Hamish has little hair on his chest- a thin layer of hair. Also a bit at the top of his ears. It hasn't spread- started when he was a pup. You don't really notice after a while.
Hi Merlot and Bella! Sorry to hear about your, um, well we won't talk about it but I just wanted to say I would still play with you anyday!
Hugs,
Baxter
my shorthaired dachshund Poppy started going bald. I managed to find some Puppy vitamin treats (http://www.markandchappell.com/dog-puppy/especially-puppies/nutri-booster-treats-puppies.htm) and doggy cod liver oil tablets and the hair grew back and shes now completely ok!
I had no idea about this, but when we adopted our 5 year old long-haired dachshund, we thought it was odd that she had very little hair on her chest. Just chalked it up to the closeness of her chest to the ground I guess.
riley, my 9 year old smooth, is pretty darn bald - whole underside, ears (they're like bat wings), tip of (rat) tail. he's also been through the whole shebang and is healthy as a horse. other than getting a little cold in winter, he's fine. he's always got blankets to cuddle in and sweaters for outside when needed.
Our DPB was caused by the stairs. Once we moved into home without stairs, our pups' hair slowly grew back. Fish oil was a big help too. Clipper alopecia was a whole different story. Our poor boy had some minor surgery and it took almost a year for his hair to start growing back on his flank. I was almost to the point of searching out doggy rogaine :)
My Bungee has a bare chest, bare throat and bare ears.
He's fine with it apparently though.
I just noticed a diamond shaped spot that looks EXACTLY like Merlot's this summer on my chocolate longhair Addie! I too thought it was just from rubbing, but glad to find out there's a real term for it. I do have carpeted stairs in my house, but she only goes up them once a day to go to bed. Hopefully it won't progress too much more, she is young yet and only turns 4 next month.
Roberta
What? No Rogaine for doxies? My Oscar seems to be holding up very well as he ages. Only time will tell.
Food can also cause a lot of these symptoms. Please make sure that your dog food has no corn, wheat, soy, grain, or meat by-products in it. All of these things can aggravate color diluted alopecia in dachshunds.
Most people have no idea what's in their bags of food and the grief it can cause their dogs.
My one doxie has seasonal alopecia. Yup. He's just like a tree; he loses his hair in the winter months. We live in one of the snowiest places in the US, so he has plenty of sweaters.
He has also been through all the tests. No issues.
He's never had hair on his belly. He loses the hair on the sides of his head and the sides of his flank. It grows back nice and thick in the spring.
i wish i had known abt this years ago my clina had this i bet she looked like the twin to moses she had bald spots on her tail i noticed it first on chest an tummy then her tail had patches missing i hope my short hair lil gal dont get this my other was black an tan long haired .tell moses he still a handsome dude i wld tell clina that cause people wld laugh at her an be mean but i wld tell clina she was my princess that wld lift her spirits she wld prance afters .
Thanks for sharing! Franny is bald from her throat to her chest, all the way down to her belly and her behind, too. Poor thing gets cold so easily. I'm glad she isn't completely bald. Her skin was pretty dry and scaly in the beginning, but her food seems to keep it soft and smooth now. It's nice to know we're not alone!
my childhood doxie, otto, started to go bald after about 9 months. we took him to the vet and he told us about this condition. we were skeptical but took his word for it. this is the very first time i have ever actually HEARD of other doxies with the problem.
otto has made it far in life, hairless. we tend to prefer him that way.
oh no! I thought my short hair doxie's collar was just rubbing him on his neck (he's been without it whenever possible the last month or so)..but now I think he's going bald on his neck at 11 months. The underside of his belly is looking a little sparse too now that I inspect him.
I'll have to look into the fish oil.
I just posted about this last month on my blog. I have had this problem since I was a puppy....and I have had a rat tail most of my life. I'm 10 now and I think it gets worse with age. I have been tested for food allergies...etc. I eat a special food my mom and dad buy for me too! You can see some pics of me here if you would like:
http://awienerdogblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/can-you-help-me.html
I love your blog, by the way!
Snuggles,
Twix
I always thought it was from jumping up on the sofa and that they rubbed their chests on the way up.
And ironically one of my dogs started going bald on her ears - my dad put some Elizabeth Arden's Eight Hour Cream and it grew right back. Who knew? :)
I'm sorry to hear they are going bald, but on the flip side of things, I'm here to vouge for the fact that being bald can be great! i've been bald since birth, and it's not too bad. you get used to being teased, but for the most part...people stop and want to learn more about me! if you need any advice about how to live with baldness, don't hesitate to ask me!
your new friend,
Albert E. Hairless
My 15 month old smooth haired female dachshund developed this hair loss and I was surprised because we live in the northeast and last year her fur got very thick. The vet prescribed 1.5 mgs of melatonin each night. We have seen some improvement, some hair actually grew back on her belly, but still thin and the chest area is still sparse. I don't like to buy clothes for my dogs but felt that she'd be too cold on some days this winter so broke down and tried to find some clothes that would cover her chest. I did and had to cut the legs down but it does the trick. It helps on the scraping as well. Good luck!
Our 5 year old Peanut is a mini doxie and is only 6 pounds. She has lost all the hair on her chest. Last summer she went through back surgery and was the best recovery the hospital had seen. The day after surgery she was already taking steps and the second day after surgery was walking very well again. Since her surgery we have noticed that she has lost the hair behind and some in front of her ears.
Today when I took her for a walk I noticed it was thinning on top of her head now. She loves the sun in the summer but I fear for her getting a sunburn. We live on the prairies in Canada and get some bitterly cold days in the winter so she is not very anxious to go outside to the bathroom. She is also not one for wearing clothes. She does however love to be tucked into a blanket and we make sure she has lots of them.
I have noticed that some of you have used fish oil and cod liver oil. I would appreciate if you could give me some advice as to where you get this, how much to give them and how do you feed it to them. I am willing to give these a try.
Hi Bonnie! Give a fish body oil (as in, NOT liver oil) and you can give 1000mg daily per 30 lbs. So for most dachshunds, just one capsule per day. You can also get liquid oils. Just look for an oil with cold-water fish like salmon or sardine. I've heard wild salmon oil is the best and I do plan to buy some when I run out of my current supply - which is just from Costco! I give all my dogs one per day.
Oh, more info on fish oil and supplements in general: http://dogaware.com/diet/supplements.html
Copy that - we give our pups one pump of salmon oil (liquid) in each meal and it makes a huge difference especially during the cold winters.
My Male Dashounds are both genetic misfits but I don t care William Holden the older one has male pattern baldness of the ears. I was wondering if there was some kind of dog dye I could put on him so his ears would appear to have hair? So far Robert Mitchum the younger dog is normal in the hair department but has pica.
I just noticed last night that our male daschund's hair is thinning as well. His skin is dark and he's dappled anyhow so I never really noticed. It started with his stomach several years ago (he was about 2) and now his entire stomach, chest, and all the way to his bottom are bald. These other spots I've just noticed are on the sides of his back. He is now 7 years old. I was contributing it to the Pedigree we've been using. He's always seems like he is hungry and will eat anything he can get his mouth on (crayons, egg shells, bugs,..you name it). I lost most of my garden to him last year. He'll chew up an entire Butternut effortlessly (shell and all). The vet says he's fine. I still plan to change their feed to a higher grade. It will be interesting to see if any hair comes back in. I had never heard of baldness in Dachunds before though. Thank you for the wonderful wealth of information.
Christy, I feed my dogs Medi-Cal food which is only available from a vet here. I find that their hair is much softer with this. When they were in a kennel this summer I think they were fed something other than their food as their hair was more wirey.
As for what to do with the Baldness, I must agree that feeding them two sardines a day helped in our little Peanut growing hair. Her coat seems much fuller and the bald spots are gone. Within a month of feeding the sardines I noticed peach fuzz on the bald areas. I totally recommend trying it. They love the sardines and know when I open a can they are getting a treat.
Wrigley, my dachshund rescue, is losing hair around his ears, on his neck and chest. He will be 2 years old, we think, sometime in early March. I, too, thought it was his collar causing the problem until I realized how far spread the thinning and baldness was. My Vet has had me start him on Melatonin 3 mg twice a day. It is too early to know if it is working. I had also recently changed his food and I have changed him back to a grain free, Wellness Core. I plan to try the fish oil supplement. I wonder if feeding a fish based food would be beneficial?
My one year old Dachshund began losing her hair about two months ago. First on the belly and chest, now up her neck and is thinning behind the ears. She is almost completely bald underneath. However, this began to occur the same time allergy season kicks in down south (we live in South Carolina. I plan on switching her to a grain-free diet, but since that is what she has always had, I don't attribute her food to the hair loss. I have an appointment to get her checked out and wanted to know what all I should have the vet test for?
The Vet will know what to test for. I suggest in addition to any allergy tests you also look into the diseases that cause hair loss. It could be something in the genetic blood lines of your pooch. If anything...I hope it's nothing serious, an just remember...they'll always be your lov-a-bum...hair or not! Good luck to you!
BTW - I'm Albert's mommy. And for some reason, we hadn't been getting all of our notifications that this post had received so many comments. Thanks all, for your stories and suggestions! And for visiting the blog! Albert thanks you from the bottom of his tail! Oh wait - that could be a smelly place! In any case - I hope you all find solutions to your hairless problems ad that regardless, your four-legged babies live long and happy lives!
My dog Calber is only 2 yrs old and has no hair around his ears, chest and under his arm pits. I would joke that he had alopecia, but once the symptom got worse I started to think maybe he does have it? I have a older dachshund and hse doesn't have it at all. But I already took him to the vet and he's super healthy, so I googled the problem and your blog came up. It set m at ease to find that its common and not harmful. Thanks
This blog was so helpful! About a year ago I noticed my dachshund, Ollie, had started to lose hair in small patches; first on his chest and belly, then I started noticing it around his ears and under his neck (I originally thought it's just coincidence and was actually from his collar constantly rubbing against it). I brought him to the vet, and he told me everything was fine. Ollie had a slight fever and was a little on the pudgy side, but was perfectly healthy. I'm so glad I ran across this blog because now I can stop worrying! I think I may bring him to the vet again and mention DPB just to get the vet's intake on it. Thanks so much, again!
My Poor Dinky started loosing her hair about six month ago and I spazed out. She is my baby so I thought the worst she started on her chest and under her ears. I took her to the vet and that when he told me it was normal for Doxies at her age to to loose hair. Now its slowed down and it doesnt bother her at all. She is the happiest little dog. I love her :)
I found an abandoned female dachshund in a store parking lot last night. She is totally bald with the exception of a few stray hairs here and there. I am worried that she is sick somehow so I have been frantically searching for answers to her hairlessness. Is it possible for the "baldness" to affect the entire coat and cause a dog to be bald?? Any information would be appreciated.
My minnie red smoothie Gretchen, 15 years old, lost the hair on her stomach at 10 years old. She also has always chewed her feet a lot, resulting in dental problems. I began making homemade dog food for Gretchen 1 year ago consisting of chicken, rice, peas and carrots. Chewing her feet has subsided 95%, the hair on her stomach has grown back very thick and silky, and she is active like a puppy. California
We just rescued a minnie red smoothie that we named Austin. I brought him to the vet for his post adoption check and the vet was concerned with his baldness. His complete under body, neck to toes, and his ears are completely bald. He is so velvety soft. The vet wanted to do all sorts of blood tests, which I could not afford. I am so glad I found this blog. I am going to try the chicken, rice, peas and carrots diet for all my dogs. Hopefully Austin's hair will start to grow back like Gretchens. Thank you all for your informative posts.
My Dachshund is only 2years old and has started loosing hair on his chest,ears and near the neck. We took him to the doctor and he was diagnosed with Thyroid.
The treatment started and now after 2 months the same continues. He is been on Thyroxin 25mg,once a day. We see no improvement.
Can anyone please help ?
My long haired black coated mini dachshund developed flakiness turning to puffy blisters on his back and the skin came off revealing raw red wounds. We cleaned and disinfected the area with ointment and bandaged the area. It healed and now his lower back is bald. It does seem he might be allergic to wheat corn and maybe potato. He also has a big ball of a fat tumor on his chest. All this has happened before and the vet checked him. Years before he had a strange tumor on his testical that grew like a long horn. The vet said it was just blood. Anyway..those were all symptoms that lead to hos balding. He also had a growth in his mouth. Antibiotics helped but we will see how he does. He is about 11 years old. He is on Limited Ingredients diet now, and likes raw carrots and would like to eat anything...he is like a hungry shark.
I have a mini dachshund, Chico, that is 11 years old as well and he has a fat tumor at the bottom of his rib cage that showed up a few years ago. It started out small and after a while grew a bit more to be quite prominent. Our vet says it is just fat and is not at all concerned about it. As he gets older we are noticing that he is no longer eating like he used to and often turns his nose at food and treats. I spoke to the owners of his parents. He has taken after his mother in many ways. She was 1 year old when she had him and passed away from a stroke last year. She also developed this fat deposit in the same place. The owners had it removed and were told it was fat. Later it did grow back. After hearing this from you and knowing that Chico's mother had the same thing I am thinking this must be a common thing for these dogs. I also have another mini dachshund, Peanut, who is only 6 1/2 lbs. and 8 years old. She has not developed this fat deposit.
My baby is a 5 year old weenie, and she has always had some hair loss on the sides of her head, but it came and went, i thought it was just seasonal or stress...but now she has two bald spots on either side of her head and it worries me and makes me sad. I feed her so well, take such good care of her, and she otherwise seems healthy, but this upsets me :( I love this little girl more than anything!!
I'm so glad I found this blog! Our little man, a smooth coat chocolate and tan mini started developing small, symmetrical bald spots on his ears at 5.5 years old. The vet hadn't seen baldness in dachshunds and ran tests to make sure it wasn't anything serious. He's still a handsome little devil, though!
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