Nina,
I had Brenin on 9 capsules of fish oil 5 in the morning and 4 at night based on his weight. According to what my vet said after reading the study... I had him on too much and that 1 capsule twice daily would be enough.
I know I've read the same thing about 180mg of EPA per ten pounds of body weight, but he changed that too once he read the study. Plus everything else I'd shown him weren't actually studies... they were things that other vets and owners had listed as what they were doing.
A direct quote from my vet, " that's alot of freaking fish oil!!!!"
I'm not really sure at this point how long Bren was dealing with this. I'm thinking that it's been since I switched his food from Cal Natural to Solid Gold because the Cal Natural was so hard to get up here without paying almost $60 a bag. So I'd say maybe 6 to 8 months? Very gradually came on. I'd notice crumbly toenails when I cut them, he'd flinch a bit more than he used when I would trim them and then about a month and a half ago, he lost a nail. My vet did the same thing as yours... check for fungus first and ruled that out.
I also noticed something else with him and I'm wondering if it's connected to the SLO in some way... Brenin's pads would peel right to the meat. I kept thinking that it was him playing with my other rottie... But I always thought it was odd that she never peeled a pad. I do know that the peeling had to have been allergy related in some way because once I started him on benadryl ( I don't think that's spelt right, but I'm too lazy to go look it up) it stopped.
Sometimes this is like a Dr. Seus story gone bad... I have Freak 1 and Freak 2.