Liz Buchanan BVSc MRCVS
Keymaster
Hello! It could be exudative dermatitis, which is a describtion rather than a diagnosis - the skin is inflamed and inflammatory 'gubbins' (technical term there) is coming away. Perhaps the hair follicles have produced a lot of exudate in response to inflammation, or perhaps the old skin layer has not flaked away. Perhaps there is infection. Perhaps there could be a small wound or foreign body underneath and scratching has damaged the skin around it (skin disease can grow sideways that way). Perhaps there are demodex mites / folliculitis contributing, hence the baldness. Perhaps it started off as an ear or sinus problem, which was scratched, damaging the skin. In some extremely unusual cases (please don't hae nightmares), cancer could look a bit like this. It might be that you never find out what it was; your vet might provide you with a (genuinely) medicated shampoo for example, that clears it up. Proper medicated shampoos and creams are sometimes better than tablets, which would affect the whole body. In other cases (for example if they can't explain it, or it doesn't respond to treatment, or they suspect demodex) your vet may want to do tests to find out more about what is going on, for example skin scrapes or biopsies. These lesions do have a way of spreading sideways, so it's worth going to see them sooner rather than later.
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