Digger and Chipper
Here’s an interesting case:
Meet Chipper and Digger, two short haired Dachshunds brothers. Digger started to lose his hair in July of 2007. His activity and all other systems were completely normal. His owner took him to a Veterinary Dermatologist who diagnosed him with Pattern Alopecia, a syndrome of hair loss characteristic to Dachshunds. No response was seen despite treatment. Digger’s only remaining hair was a Mohawk along his back. Then in March of 2008, Chipper began to lose his hair in a similar pattern to Digger progressing to the same amount of hair loss as Digger by December 2009. During a routine Urinalysis checkup in December of 2009, Digger was diagnosed with a Urinary Tract Infection and an enlarged prostate which was unresponsive to antibiotics. Further diagnostic workups confirmed an enlarged prostate and high estrogen levels in both Digger and Chipper. With some detective work we discovered that reason for hair loss in both dogs was an exposure to topical estrogen being used by their owner. As it turns out, the owner was using a Topical estrogen cream and the dogs would lick the owner’s skin and absorb an excess of estrogen, leading to enlarged prostate and hair loss. Once we removed the access to the estrogen, both Chipper and Digger, within 6 weeks, had their shiny black coats back again!
Before:
After:
