Question for those who have experience, because I've never dealt with this.

One of my 6 month pups went to the vet the other day and the vet said that there is a patch on her pastern about the size of a half dollar that was scraped and found to be demodex. He told me that she needed to be spayed as well as her mother and sisters because this is a genetic disease passed on by the mother.

Reasons why this seems excessive to me:

1) The spot is small (localized, not general demodectic mange which is a different thing altogether), is clearing without treatment of any kind, and never looked oozie, moist, or bad. In fact, I never sought treatment of any kind because I didn't think it was warranted.

2) This is a repeat breeding. The bitch has had 20 puppies with the same dog and not a single puppy in the first litter (which is now almost 3) has had a skin issue of any kind. Two pups in this litter have been diagnosed with it. One pup (a pet pup) has already cleared 100%. My keeper is the second. (there were 11 puppies in this litter)

3) I know several bitches related to this bitch and have never heard of their puppies having issues with demodex.

4) When I told the vet it seemed excessive, he told me that vets probably don't even see a great majority of the puppies with mild localized demodex and they clear on their own.

I've been doing online research and have read opinions as broad as "spay everything related to the bitch", to "you can breed an individual who was diagnosed with demodex as a pup as long as it clears natually and doesn't reoccur in adulthood."

Please share with me any experiences you have had in this area. I don't want to bury my head in the sand if this is a legitimate issue, but I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This bitch has all clearances, hip/elbows/eyes/Optigen/heart echo, etc. I am not eager to scrap her and her puppies from my program because of a dry skin patch that is easily fixed with treatment and sometimes requires no treatment at all.

Thx!

Only one spot, so that's consider "localized". Actually I believe 1 to 4 spots would be considered localized, vs. "generalized".

Sounds like the pup has localized juvenile Demodectic Mange (a puppy hood thing, immature immune system, etc.) It's said there's a 90% chance these puppyhood cases resolve on their own with no treatment, unless there's a family history in related dogs.

If the pup is a future breeding "candidate", thinking is it's best to not treat with anything, only for the fact that you wouldn't ever then know if it would have developed into "generalized" Demodectic Mange (which has a hereditary component) if you treat.

My foundation bitch had demodex as a puppy and my vet at the time said the same thing. Luckily I did not listen to him. She had several litters and never produced a puppy with it. I have a daughter here who just had her first litter 7 months ago and none of her puppies have had it.

I agree with the other posters. Yrs ago, I had a Swissy bitch how developed a spot and she was about 15 months old at the time. She had not been in season. My vet told me just to watch it and ride it out if it did not worsen. It never got an worse yet for a long time it did not get any better. At 17 months of age she finally came in season. By the time she was out of heat, the spot had shrunk by 50% and had hair growing back. Her mother had several litters and this was the only case. This bitch was never bred, but her 3/4 sisters were and they never produced it.
As long as it does not get worse, I would not worry about it.
Julia

Thanks you guys! I really appreciate your posts.

This takes a load off of my mind. I truly believed that spaying everything was extreme for something as minor as this, but wanted to make sure I wasn't minimizing the situation because these are my girls and I have so many hopes pinned to them.

It's hard to have your vet look you in the eye and tell you that the responsible thing to do is to spay everything related to your girl.

I do quite a bit of rescue work and have seen Demodex Mange in almost all of the Momma dogs that come here.

All dogs carry the mites(I know, gross!!) and moms pass them on to puppies.(grosser!!) So dogs with weak immune systems, like the pregnant strays/rescues that I take in, will show signs of the mange with the scaly patches you are seeing on your girl. I have had moms all but lose their entire coat. But in time with good food and proper worming etc,. their systems bounce back and all is well.

In my opinion, I would look more to why your puppy may have been susceptible. Does she need a different food, supplements, some sort of oil added to her food? Has she had a recent virus or been around dogs who may have been sick? Really anything can trigger a little break out.

Good luck, glad you didn't listen to the Doc!!

Interesting this subject as we are experiencing a severe case of Demodectic Mange in our 2 week old pups. They first showed signs of some sort of infection on their bellys which was red and sort of blistery looking, smelly. I took the pups to the vet and he put them on Clavomox. That cleared the infection up but then the pups started loosing big patches of fur. They now look like Chinese Cresteds, all of this within 7 days time. I have made an appointment with a Dermatologist for later this week. From my research, the generalized mange is very hereditary and in this bad a case, the dam should not be bred again, nor should any of her pups. I've never seen mange in any of our litters all these years but the mom of this current litter did have puppy strangles when she was a young puppy, as did all her littermates. My girl whelped a very healthy large litter last year with no problem so why this happened in her 2 puppy litter is a mystery. I did take her to the vet the day her 2nd puppy was born to get radiographed. I thought she had more pups in her, maybe one of them blocking the others from coming down. She was empty and only had 2 pups. Everything was fine until day 6 when their bellys were red and blistery looking. There was also these little dry crusties all over their body. The little girl was peeling a thin layer of skin like a sun burn. I really didn't know what to make of it all and didn't even think of mange until their started loosing all their fur. The mom has a little hair loss under her one eye and then a big patch of fur on her shoulder area. Even that didn't worry me as some bitches will lose hair while they are nursing, hormonal related. The mom has always been on top quality dog food, clean environment. I feel there is a genetic weakness in these lines that show up randomly, like it did when she and her littermates got puppy strangles. Alot of vets don't know much about strangles or what causes them. More and more information is coming out about this condition, being touted as an auto immune disease. I'm not going to breed our girl again and I don't have any of her offspring to carry on her lines.