Bit of a weird one...

Dial Hard

Hi All

I have an approx. 18 month old setter cross that I recently adopted after fostering her for a while.

She was on Royal Canin when I fostered her but I changed her onto James Wellbeloved once that was gone - maybe three or four weeks ago now. Anyway, she's doing well on it - seems to enjoy her meals a lot more, her poos are much firmer and a persistent patch of dermatitis on one of her ears is pretty much gone.

Here's the but, though - she's shedding like an absolute mofo now. It was bad when we got her, which I put down to stress, bad diet and ill-treatment. But it's actually gotten way worse since the food change. The hair is literally coming off her in sheets when I curry-comb her and my heart is broken trying to keep the house hoovered.

I guess what I'm asking is whether it's possible that her skin/coat is adjusting to the food change and maybe the shedding is a result of that and will settle after a while? Or is that really wishful thinking?

ETA: I didn't change her over "cold", it was done over the course of a week or so with reducing amounts of the old food mixed into the new.

JPA

Could be just a coincidence with the time of year.
Some dogs will always shed no matter what, twice a year, spring and autumn.

You could try adding salmon oil to the diet to help reduce it.

Cows Go µ

Is she neutered? I think most girls seem to shed a lot either before or after going into heat. If it's not that, it's likely that it's just the time of year.

What I do with my girl is when she starts looking tufty, I give her a really good brush, remove as much of the loose hair as I can. Give her a wash then another really good brush. That seems to loosen the hair so either a day or two later I give her a final brush and that gets her over the worst of it.

ShaShaBear

As others have said, some dogs just shed twice a year and there's not a whole pile can be done.
My collie, Opie, shed a few weeks back but it was pretty mild.
My last dog used to blow his coat twice a year every year for the 11 he was alive. This was the fall of year 10:

Dial Hard

ShaShaBear wrote:

My last dog used to blow his coat twice a year every year for the 11 he was alive. This was the fall of year 10:

Yup, looks familiar alright. I might give her a wash as someone suggested and see if that might hurry things up a bit.

I suppose I should be thankful that she has the kind of hair that can be picked up by a hoover/sticky roller. I had three boxers in a previous life and their hair was like needles.

ShaShaBear

Dial Hard wrote: »

Yup, looks familiar alright. I might give her a wash as someone suggested and see if that might hurry things up a bit.

I suppose I should be thankful that she has the kind of hair that can be picked up by a hoover/sticky roller. I had three boxers in a previous life and their hair was like needles.

If she likes it, it really does help. Shadow didn't really like baths but he did tolerate them, and massaging him and letting him dry naturally usually loosened the worst of it and I was able to comb the rest out (as you can see :pac: )