I have a litter here, 4 weeks old, that has several pups with hair loss around muzzle, some around eyes, some crustiness and skin peeling, mild swelling at those sites. No pustules at all. Inside of ears is normal, bellies are normal, and the bridge of nose is normal, rest of body is normal and they are happy bouncy pups. The affected pups have been to vet twice, are on Clavamox, and have had negative skin scrapings done, growing out a culture. We don't think it's strangles, unless it's extremely early stages, and in my limited experience strangles comes on hard and fast and this doesn't present like 'typical' strangles. Not Demodex. At this point it seems to be a contagious staph infection, but I've never had anything like this. Does it sound familiar to anyone?

Had this happen a few years back. We finally just figured it to be a staph caused by the mom laying or walking through something when she was outside which must have gotten on her underside and passed onto the pups when nursing. We put the pups on antibiotics and it did clear up with no problems later on with the pups.

Did you have a lot of hair loss on the parts of the face effected?

Thanks for your response.

Sounds to me like the beginnings of sarcoptic mange, numerous skin scrapings will not have the mites show up. I would treat them as if they have the mange and if it disappears then that was it.
Aloha,
jackie

Yes I did, it seemsed to be area's that would touch the underside of the mom, so mostly around the eye's and mouth, nowhere else.

I had this with my litter at exactly the same time, just 3-4 puppies out of 9. I washed with Nolvasan (Chlorhexiderm) shampoo twice, two days apart, and it went away. I used a washcloth around the eyes and did not get it in eyes, and rinsed well.
I hate to use antibiotics on such young babies.
This does not sound like sarcoptic mange, do not treat 4 week old babies for sarcoptic mange, as the treatment is too rough for them at that age, and the mites would show up on the skin scraping.

One of our bitches had this with her second and third litter. It starts out like tiny pustules, they eventually burst and crust over. It never went anywhere else but the facial and eye area. My vets says it is a staph infection and is caused by the pups having food and moisture stuck to their faces. This is also the time teeth are coming in so their are biting and chewing each other just adds more bacteria. I only had to do antibiotics the first time. The second time I caught on to it early and was washing faces with mild baby wipes everytime they ate.I dried them off with face clothes. It wasn't near as bad as the first time and it dissapeared very quickly. Nobody was scarred or had missing fur. It is very common so not too worry. Just keep them clean and dry. Strangles affects different aeas of the body and can be very serious if not treated properly. I believe the use of steroids is necessary. Best of luck with your pups.

Memory just got jogged. We treated with face washing after meals and there was some type antibiotic or antibacterial creme we put on their faces.

Yes have seen this about the time they start eating mush, if mom doesn't do the best job cleaning up
wash area with antibacterial after meals.
Hair loss is around jowls and bridge of nose.

I have had something similar in a couple litters. The antibiotics ultimately treated it and it went away and the pups did fine. They never had problems as adults. I believe it is from their immature immune systems. Some pups had it worse than others with hair loss on their muzzles and a little around their eyes. Incidentally the litters that were affected also seemed to have roundworm burdens dispite my routine dewormings w/ pyrantel. I now am more aggressive about worming mom ahead of time and worm the puppies more often and use panacur. I think maybe somehow the parasate burden challenged their systems and made them more susceptable to infection? Just a thought, good luck and don't fret too much -they'll be fine. The hair on my pups did take a bit to grow back but they were not scarred or anything. I cleaned w/ chloerhexiderm flush but didn't think that helped. I also gave them yogurt when they were on antibiotics (we used Cefa drops).

I really don't think it's scabies.

I have been cleaning these pups faces off every time they eat. I have had the minor staph infection before from the food drying on the face. So am always sure to wash good after they eat now. I think I probably even added to the problem, because that was my first thought too, and so I'd clean even more. I used the same towel at that point so I may have been spreading it around.

Thanks everyone. I'm feeling better about the situation after reading your replies.

I had the same symptoms on a few pups in a litter of 11, I spent a fortune with a specialty hospital checking this that and everything. It turned out the pups were sucking and biting on each others muzzle's and faces. It happened at about the same age. Started weaning and the problem resolved. I hope that
may be the culprit. 25 years of breeding and that was
a first for me.