# Doggy dandruff and brand of dog food



## Shiningsummer (May 24, 2010)

Hi, new dog owner here looking for advice. I noticed that my 9 month old dog Molly had little white flakes all over her back recently as well as a small missing patch of her under her chin, so I took her to the vet. They took a skin scraping and tested it, which has since come back negative. The vet said it was most likely dry skin caused by allergies, so she prescribed an omega 3 fish oil capsule once a day and a special shampoo. I was giving Molly Iams puppy food, but due to her dry skin, I started researching dog foods and decided to try switching her to Blue Buffalo for puppies. She has been on the omega 3 for a couple weeks now and I have used the shampoo as prescribed, but I just started feeding her the BB. My question is, how long should I keep her on BB before I know for sure if it's helping her skin or not? So far I have not really seen any improvement in the dandruff and the missing patch of hair has grown back with no more missing patches. She doesn't really scratch excessively or anything like that. I don't want to keep switching her food around, so any advice would be appreciated!


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## HORSEandHOUND (May 28, 2009)

You should see improvement within 6 weeks. I would also highly recommend deworming for tapeworms as they can cause flaky skin at the lower back.


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## jclt (May 24, 2010)

That's great your Vet gave you an alternative solution... with the Omega 3. I would keep going that way. Glad you turned away from Iams. But Blue Buffalo has rice in it, lots of dogs get allergies from rice. I would switch your dog to a grain-free food. Try Orijen or Grain-Free Acana. I would have recommended Evo but P&G is taking over and so it probably won't be any better than Iams. 
I know you just said you don't want to be switching food around again, but you gotta do it for your dog. I'd say 99% of allergy problems are from food. Grains in dog food cause it a lot of the time. Sometimes it's certain proteins too. You dog might be allergic to Chicken, so you have to switch to a Fish one, or a Lamb one.


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## Shiningsummer (May 24, 2010)

Wow, I've only been a member on this forum for 1 day and I'm already getting great advice. I'm so glad I joined. I haven't had a dog since I was a kid, so I've been learning a lot since I got Molly from a shelter 5 months ago. Thank you so much for your replies, I will look into them.


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## GreatDaneMom (Sep 21, 2007)

my dogs used to have flakes and very mild allergies. but once i switched to grain free all that went away. i switched to taste of the wild


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