Toy Poodle - "Baboon Butt" Hair Loss

[slimmerj]

Our poodle is exhibiting some unusual hair loss patterns. We have had her about 7 weeks and she is 4 months old. The hair loss is not associated with soars, smell, or clumping and is isolated to her hind quarters only.

She simply seems to have no hair on her backside and the top 1 inch of her tail. The diameter of the bald area is about 3 inches. What should the normal hairless area be on a poodle?

Others have inquired if we shaved her like that and of course we did not. She did have an infection in her anal glands and we wondered if she licked the hair off herself while attending to the area. We have taken her to the vet and he had never seen the unusual pattern of loss, she was tested for mites and was fine, but we did place her onto antibiotics. Since then it appears some hair on the perimeters may be growing back. How long might a bald area take to grow back?

Any thoughts on what may have caused the problem to begin with?

[DogMom]

That sounds about right. I had a foster once with an infection in her anal glands and she would run her butt along the ground (grass or cement, it didn't matter). The area was itchy and this was a great way to scratch it. So she took ended up rubbing all the hair off.

I'd expect it to take at least a couple months for the hair to grow back in fully.

However, I'd keep a close eye on it for mange. This is one of the first places it shows up and tests are only 30% accurate. Just because your vet said he didn't see any mites does not mean there aren't mites there.