Black skin, sores & heavy shedding/hair loss...

[SilverMoo]

We have recently adopted an 11 month old labradoodle. He had sores on his belly with black bald spots and he has a course wiry coat that sheds heavily.

The vet has done a skin test which has shown a bacterial infection, he is on antibiotics which have cleared up the sores but he is still shedding heavily and has bald black areas of skin.

The vet isn't sure what is causing the bacterial infection and says it could be a skin allergy. It could also be black skin disease (alopecia X)

Anyone have any experience of this??? Thanks

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Alopecia X is a diagnosis of exclusion having done allergy testing and the bloods testing for all the endocrine disorders. It is really quite uncommon and tends to occur in the smaller toy breeds such as Pomeranians. Allergies are much much more likely doing blood test for allergies can be enormously helpful, like humans dust mite allergies are very common in dogs.

[SilverMoo]

The thing is he is not itchy at all, and the sores & black skin only appear around his groin with a few bits along his chest.