Dog Dermatological Condition

I'm attaching pictures of my 6 year old female boxer. She has been experiencing lesions on her face, in her mouth and the right side of her body. She was given antibiotics and antibacterial shampoo treatments but does not appear to be responding to them. Her vet claims her immune system is depleted (I did not see the labs) and that this is a bacterial infection. I am concerned for her as her condition appears to be worsening. Does this diagnosis seem sound? Thanks!   -Ian

Hi Ian  I'm sure that if your vet has done tests and says that they have found there to be bacteria in those lesions, they will be right; indeed, the skin looks to have lost its superficial protective barrier and appears quite raw, leaving it vulnerable.  These days we treat bacterially-infected skin with antibiotic shampoo rather than antibiotic tablets.  If the infection is only superficial, this spared medication affecting the balance of bacteria in the gut, for example. Often, such lesions also contain yeast infection requiring an anti-yeast shampoo also;  perhaps the antibacterial shampoo also contains agents that address yeast or other superficial opportunists. However, another question is why bacteria +/- yeast would have invaded the skin in the first place.  My skin comes up against all sorts of bacterial pathogens every day (I used to put my hand up cows' bottoms as part of my job), yet I have seldom needed treatment for a skin infection.  Healthy skin, whether it was designed or evolved for the purpose, keeps bacteria out. Therefore in this case, it is likely that something may have weakened the skin or caused inflammation and the cause of that inflammation may need to be addressed.  I wonder about things like allergies, lymphoma, autoimmune conditions, mites and so on. I wonder what country you are in and whether there are parasites that you need to be aware of. Obviously I know very little about your dogs' specific case, so your vet's opinion will likely be more helpful than mine.  If they have run out of options from here, they might be able to refer you to a dermatologist for more information. Best of luck.

(please note on rereading this, I ought to point out that we do wear gloves when putting our hands inside cows;. I was simply making the point that in normal life, skin comes across all kinds of pathogens so a good question is why skin allows the pathogen through to infect it; what underlying problem is causing that).

Dear Ian.   I haven't explained that very well   I am going to try again.   First, it is very likely that your vet has done tests and found bacteria in those lesions.  They must be very vulnerable to bacterial infection, being open like that.  We do sometimes use shampoo to treat bacterial infections on the skin and hopefully your vet will have prescribed something appropriate for raw skin like this (the versions I know are not).

However, bacterial infection may not be the cause of these wounds.  Perhaps there were pre existing wounds that got infected, or perhaps scratching / self mutilation caused them if the skin was intensely itchy, or perhaps there is an underlying autoimmune illness or skin cancer or something else going on, but it would be surprising for bacterial infection alone to cause these wounds in a healthy animal, even if they are infected now.

Allergy can be another common cause.  Therefore it would make a lot sense to get to the bottom of what caused the wounds in the first place.  Your vet may need to do tests or biopsies to work this out.   Meanwhile, the wounds themselves may need treatment so please go on seeing your vet.  I hope that this helps a little.    This is a better answer to your question.

Allergy can be another common cause.  Therefore it would make a lot sense to get to the bottom of what caused the wounds in the first place.  Your vet may need to do tests or biopsies to work this out.   Meanwhile, the wounds themselves may need treatment so please go on seeing your vet.  I hope that this helps a little.    This is a better answer to your question.

Thank you so much for the response, Dr. Buchanan. Currently she is treated with antibacterial and anti-yeast shampoo and now a topical silver compound. She has also had a 10 day dose of prednisone. Her face seems to have worsened significantly but he body wounds appear the same.

Admittedly, I am not the one treating her. That is my father. They live in South Florida. I am just trying to assist as best I can as my dog means so much to me.   Her vet recently mentioned they might need to make a decision on euthanasia but it seems premature to be discussing that. She is still ambulatory, eating and drinking. She even runs around outside and plays. She just has this really unsightly disease.

One more thing - what is a reasonable timeline for recovery? Is it reasonable to expect a full recovery in a month? My father is distressed that this illness is not improving in a visible timescale. I told him certain conditions don’t resolve like thar but I don’t know what to tell him to expect.