What is this? - Page 1

I had gone to the vet a few weeks back, normal vaccines and puppy related things. He had a spot on his ear at the time, that didn't look too bad at the time. However the vet thought it might be ringworm(I have never had dogs with ring worm before) and suggested using this spray/ointment that they had for it. He had said it would be cheaper for me to just use this because most likely it is ring worm, instead of doing a test to see if it is, and then after that's done, doing the treatment. So I did what he had suggested, and used it for the time suggested. Well, the hair that he had on that spot is completely gone now, but it almost looks a little "bubbly" on this one part of that spot on his ear. We go back to the vet tomorrow so they will be able to figure it out I imagine, but just thought I would check on here first as well.

Hard to tell from the picture but if you leave those babies together even for 5 minutes unattended, please take the collars off. Too many horror stories.

They are not left together unattended. Typically I take the fur saver collar off when they're playing.

Can you get a close up picture of the spot.

I'll try to shortly. Sometimes I do my work from home, right now I'm at the office though. I'll take one here in a couple of hours when I'm back home.

Darn, they are so stinkin' cute! Littermates?

My first thought was ringworm, too. It's the wrong part of the ear for a hematoma, and I really can't think of anything else it might be. If it were an infection from the other pup biting him/her, the hair wouldn't have fallen out.

Sunsilver the picture is very deceiving on their size. The one in the back is a year and a few months old, and nearly 40 something lbs(give or take, I haven't had the pup weighed in a few weeks) more than the pup. The pup is 12 or 13 weeks old(I am drawing a blank at the moment). The pup is mostly West German and Czech; The older dog is mostly DDR and some Czech. Both of these dogs are turning out to be a lot of fun to work with and train. I'm heading back to the house here in about 20 minutes, I'll try to get a close up picture of that spot then. I will say, the rest of the hair on that spot did not fall out until I started using the spray the vet gave me.

Very difficult to say from a distance, but I've had odd 'spots' like this on dogs, where the hair has not fallen off until after treatment (as you describe, Guy), which have just been down to an odd 'nick' or insect bite, and soon recovered.

Conversely, I have seen Demodectic mange start from a small area like this - needs to be watched in case it starts to spread. Cases of Ringworm are actually rarer these days than frequently thought - and rarely form a 'ring', either (pre or post having anything rubbed on it)
- and I would have thought the test for Ringworm so basic and not SO expensive that it would always have been worth doing, to be sure what the vet was dealing with before trying to treat it. Not sure I would have appreciated your vet's approach !

All the vet needs to diagnose ringworm is an ultraviolet light. The kennel I worked for had a very bad outbreak of ringworm among the cats, so I am VERY familiar with it.

If they are outside a lot, it could be from flies biting them. My boy Sam's ears got bald spots on his ears when he was outside in his kennel run, and it was from flies. I bought some insect repellent that's safe for use on animals and sprayed it on him whenever he was outside for a while and that fixed it from happening again. It was from a farm supply store, I think Tractor Supply Co, but any farm supply store should have it. It's usually for horses and cows, but it's safe for dogs too.