Skin spots?

Hi, I rescued our little 11 week old Min Pin Mini Mae on 1/27 and she was very underweight but is at a healthy weight now, however she’s developing these spots on her skin now. The first one started on her neck and now there’s one by her tail. Any advice would be so greatly appreciated. I just want to make sure she’s healthy and cared for.

Aw, what a cutie.  I am concerned about those spots, though.  One of the first things that your vet might want to rule out is parasites.  Are the areas itching?  If so, they might want to make sure that fleas have been completely ruled out, so if you have used a shop-bought flea product then it would be useful to try and find the packaging or remember the name and the way that it was given.  It's traditonal for clients to say that their itchy dog doesn't have fleas, but fleas are siffict to rule out and flea treatments can work wonders for itchy dogs, even when no fleas have been seen.

None itchy bald spots can be caused by a micropscopic non itchy hair-follicle mite called demodex.  All dogs have a few demodex on them anyway (so do we - in our eyebrows) but in pups with less hardy immune systems, the Demodex breed to such an extent that the change in hair coverage can be noticable.

Another candidate is Ringworm, which can have implications for humans living in contact, dspecially if they are immunocompromised (eg very old, young, ill or pregnant).   Som females have hair loss connected with their cycles and other endocrine disorders can also cause patchy hair loss.

Because so many possible reasons exist, it would be well worth taking Mini Mae to the vets to get this fully investigated before it has chance to spreak.  Autoimmune conditions and hormonal conditions may need to be tested for, too.  Please do let us know what they find!

(Meanwhile, please do keep your hands well washed and avoid touching the area, just in case your vet is concerned about ringworm).

You may have found this, but David Harris wrote a good article in the blog - a long time ago now - called 'Why is my Dogs Hair falling out?'    You can read about ringworm in the FAQs:  'What's the Best Way of getting rid of Ringworm in my puppy'.   This is worthwhile because Rngoworm can be infectious and if it might be that, there may be steps that you want to take in adcance.  The best next step is to get your dogs' condition diagnosed and this will need an examination - and often tests - by the vet.