Hi there,

Just a quick question for you knowledgeable lot.  Do you know if dark skin pigmentation can increase with age?

My Tess has had a couple of problems with hairloss over the last couple of months.  Now I've tried changing food, over a long period of time and there seems to be nothing related to that.  She's also been given steroid tablets (very short term) and also antibiotics.  Neither seem to have helped or hindered that increase in hairloss though.  Oh, and she also had a skin scrape to check for mites, but that came back clear.

The hairloss is occurring on her stomach and armpits, and the inside of her rear legs, but nowhere else.

She has a big white section of hair on her chest, and here there seems to be an increase in the black pigmentation spots on her skin.  Now it could just be that I'm noticing the pigmentation more because the hair is thinning there too.

She also seems to be particularly 'dirty' and a bit sticky around her private area, could that be related?  Could it be a yeast infection or similar?

Many, many questions - sorry!  Just be interested if anyone has any experiences, or advice.

She's very healthy and happy generally and the rest of her coat seems shiny & clean, etc.  Just a bit perplexing as to why so much hairloss......

Thanks :)

It could be an allergy to inside/outside the home, bacterial infection or maybe pyoderma.  To find out if its an allergy, you're vet would need to get her blood tested. Evening Primrose Oil is very good for skin troubles as its a natural anti-histamine. :)

Common in bullbreeds is  "seasonal alopecia", which is hair loss on the flanks that usually starts in the spring and ends in June or July or hormonaly driven-  flank balding - after spaying.

As your dogs balding is in in other places,  it would be worth having Thyroid hormone levels checked too.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I have actually started giving evening primrose oil, but only in the last week or so, so no noticeable difference yet, as I'm assuming that it will take some time to have any effect?

Have also looked up about seasonal alopecia before, and going only by the pictures of that particular ailment, it doesn't look like Tess is suffering from that.
However, I'm not vet of course, so it might be worth mentioning that to the vet.  (Tess is due for her booster on Thursday).
I'm in Australia tooolz, so we're actually in Winter just now, and very much cooling down (which is nice! lol).
Both dogs are restricted from the grass lawn at the moment (and have been for a good few months) simply because they both got very itchy red feet from it. 
Also, Tess was speyed many years ago, she's almost 8 years old now, so I did wonder if the old hormones were starting to change because of her age.

Haven't heard of pyoderma, so I'll look that one up :)

Again thanks for your replies so far, and sorry if it sounds like I'm saying 'no, not that' to every answer!!

In the link below is a long list of possible causes

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2111&aid=425

thanks for that dogsdinner!  Very useful info.

Now I'm really confused though, because having thought about it and checked out my male dog.  He seems to be losing some hair underneath his torso too!
Hmmm.....

Darker skin and fur loss are both typical signs of hypothyroidism.

and spayed bitches are more likely to develop hypothyroidism

Hmmm, yep, I saw that on the useful link that dogsdinner posted.

But the fact that my male dog is losing hair underneath too... ? 

I would say thyroid as well.

Has demodex been ruled out, the breed seems rather prone during stress.

So far yes, demodex ruled out.  Tess had a skin scrape about a month or so ago, and that was clear.