Blue staff losing fur?

[extremepie]

Just a quick one for all you people who are knowledgeable about dogs.

Our next door neighbour (and DH's best friend) has a blue staff around 8 months old.

For the last couple months she has been losing her fur in little spots all over her body but also large patches from her chest and head. It's almost like when men go bald - its sort of thinning and then disappearing altogether.

He has apparently taken her to the vet and been told that this sometimes happens with blue staffs when they reach 'puberty'. The hormones cause them to lose their fur but it does grow back.

I'm not sure about this. I'm not a doggy expert but it seems strange that this would only happen to blue staffs and not the other colours (as he claims is the case).

Do you think it might be something else? Just curious because she spends a lot of time with my dogs and if it's likely that it's something they could catch I would like her to be treated before they spend more time together.

Any ideas?

Did the vet take a skin scraping? Sounds a lot like demodectic mange.

There is a condition called Colour Dilution Alopecia or Colour Mutant Alopecia, which is thinning and/or loss of hair in Blue dogs.

Blue, although pretty, is actually a dilution of black, and it has associated health problems, because it is actually genetically 'weak'.

There is no cure, unfortunately.