Balding Shar Pei. Any ideas?

Re: Balding Shar Pei. Any ideas?

Laurence Webb — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:01:00 GMT

It could be, but the skin is surprisingly normal for a SharPei, isn't thickened at all and doesn't even smell greasy. The sebum on the hair shafts is dry and not mucoid at all. It's also not got the thickened pleats of skin or 'socks' around the hocks and carpi which I believe are typical of cutaneous mucinosis. .

And yes, I did consider telling the owner that it's a SharPei so just to accept these things. It'll probably get repeated bouts of SharPei fever culminating in renal failure from amyloidosis if the mast cell tumours don't get it first so there's little point worrying about this sort of stuff.

Re: Balding Shar Pei. Any ideas?

Rob Davis — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:20:28 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]Possibly a mild form of Cutaneous Mucinosis[/quote]

I agree. I'd not come across this until recently when I did a skin biopsy in a shar pei (actually I was resecting a large flap of skin from it's neck so it didn't interfere with it's ability to eat! Decided to send some for histopath as it looked very odd). Apparently it is common in shar peis (fortunately we don't see many, although I get the impression they are on the increase), and as Vikki says, there doesn't appear to be much you can do about it.

Re: Balding Shar Pei. Any ideas?

Vikki Halliday LLB — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:47:14 GMT

Possibly a mild form of Cutaneous Mucinosis, which causes thickening, alopeia and very mucoid sebum discharging from the follicles.

Not much you can do bout it!