Office Hours
Demodicosis
Roxi
Roxi is a very sweet Shepherd-mix puppy who developed areas of hair loss around one of her eyes, an elbow, and her hind feet around 6 months of age. These areas were not itchy and did not seem to bother Roxi, but were noted during her vet exam. Since mites are a common cause of hair loss in puppies, a skin scraping test was performed to look for them. Several Demodex canis mites were seen under the microscope in Roxi’s skin specimen.
Demodex canis
Roxi was started on an oral medication that should eliminate the mite infestation. We repeated her skin scraping after 4 weeks on the medication, and no mites were seen under the microscope. She will need to have one more skin scraping before we can discontinue her medication, but Roxi is on the road to recovery.
Roxi's paw after a skin scraping. The patch of hairloss is from the demodex mites.
There are several different mites that can cause skin problems in dogs and cats. In particular, the Demodex mite is a normal inhabitant in the skin and lives deep in the hair follicle. While inhabiting the hair follicle, these mites cause inflammation (folliculitis) and cause the hair to fall out. These mites can reproduce rapidly and develop into an infestation (demodicosis) in dogs with stressed or weakened immune systems, such as young, sick, or elderly dogs. There also appears to be a genetic tendency towards demodicosis in some dogs, so it is recommended that dogs with demodicosis are spayed and neutered.
