Undercoat showing all over

[QuietDaze]

Hi everyone, I'm a recent addition to the boards and have a question regarding my dog's coat. We have two Rottie's, male, female almost 4 years old. The female has a beautiful coat. The male is the one I have the problem with.

Being new to Rotties I thought it was normal for him to have an undercoat all over but after coming to this forum I see that he's only supposed to have it on his neck and hind legs. He has undercoat showing through all over. I did a search and see that I should probably change his food, and get his tyroid checked. His undercoat has always shown through so I'm wondering if this is something that can be corrected or does he just have a bad coat? They are both eating pedigree and I've been adding a little olive oil to his food for about the last 2 months but see no change.

Thank you for any advice.

[brunie's mom]

Pedigree is a very poor quality food.
Take a look at the ingredients list on the back of the bag...it's corn, corn, and more corn and by-product meal. This food has very little meat in it.

I would suggest you do some reading on the Nutrition Forum and see what foods are most often recommended here...they will most often be a food that uses human grade meats, and no corn, wheat or soy products...and no by-product meal.

As far as the undercoat...an improved diet may help with that...or it could just be the way your Rottweiler is bred and genetics? Did your dog come from a BYB or a shelter? Most often dogs that are not well bred have undercoat showing.

Gina

[tmatty]

Quiet,
My first suggestion would be to immediately stop feeding crappy commercial dog food that you buy at the grocery store. Find yourself a pet supply store that sells holistic/natural human grade dog food. You will notice an improvement in your dogs within days. You may notice a cleansing effect(soft stool) at first, but the benefits of feeding quality food will be very apparent within the first week.

As far as excessive under coat, it could be genetics, could be general health, could be parasites, could be a number of things. I would first start with diet, have a fecal sample checked for parasites, and get a good de-shedding brush (I like the "Furmanator". It works great).

Age is another factor. How old is your dog? As dogs(and horses) age, there are health issues that can inhibit a dog from being able to shed. Thyroid function and Cushings come to mind.

Let us know how it goes. This is just an opinion and some dogs do just fine on it, but Pedigree is crap and you are doing more harm than good, feeding your dogs this food. Again, JMO
Tracy

[cocopuffs]

You should really consider changing foods, if you want to stick to cheap Diamond makes a Lamb and rice that's decent, it seems everybody who post here has stock in canidae which is good but it contains 2 kinds of rice as the 2nd and 3rd ingred., which means it's probably more rice than meat, and blue buffalo is another good quality food.

[OnyxGold1]

I concur with the change of food....there are sooo many better foods out there for you to research in terms of how well your dogs do on them.

The only thing that I would add would be how often do you groom and thoroughly pull the undercoat??

My one girl each spring looks downright brown given the amount of undercoat showing through her guard hairs and as soon as I strip her undercoat out she looks fine again. Typically what I do is brush thoroughly with a slicker brush.....then use an extra fine (#20) MARS Coat King and strip out her undercoat, followed by a bath, and then followed by another thorough grooming while blow drying.....you'll be amazed at how much hair you have in your garbage by the time you're done.

Hope this helps
Heather Peters

[QuietDaze]

Thank you for the quick replies! I knew the Pedigree was crap, and told my husband so. He was on Nutro Natural Choice and then we got Bella (female) about a year ago so we switched them to the cheaper food. His undercoat was always showing through though. I have actually been kicking around the idea of going Raw with him for about 2 years but have been waffling on the fence for financial and time reasons. The one thread I saw mentioned premade raw food (which I didn't even know existed) and there's a Nature's Variety dealer not far from my job so I'm going to bop on over there to see how much it costs. I'm sure it's more expensive than doing it myself but he'll probably eat less.

As far as grooming, I brush him pretty much everyday and the hair is mostly undercoat. I have a pin brush, normal brush and a slicker. He hates the slicker but will tolerate it for a while. I've never purposely tried to pull his undercoat as I thought it should be there and thought dogs naturally shed their undercoats. I checked out the Mars Coat King. I think I'll have to find a less expensive option if I can but how do you know what type of blade or are they standard? I bathe him about once every 2 weeks. (they spend a lot of time outside wrestling in the dirt) Brush him before, then after and when he's pretty much dry brush him again and then vaccum him. I've never blown him dry, but will try it. He had a health check and shots in February which came back fine. He's going in either this week or next for his nails so I'll ask the groomer to check him for parasites if they didn't when he was in. He rarely scratches and his skin isn't dry. At least not to my eye.

Kane is unfortunately from a BYB, hubby had no idea what a BYB was and bought him for me as a gift. I knew better of course, having done the rounds with my Ridgeback. We did have the option of giving him back but I couldn't of course. So, we have no idea what his genes are carrying. Bella was a rehomed dog, someone had her listed on CraigsList and my husband went and got her. So again, I have no idea where she came from.

I'll try to get pix of them this afternoon so you can see the difference in their coats if anyone cares to look. Thanks again for the advice, I can see that I will get quite an education from this forum.

Tiffani

[brunie's mom]

Pre-made raw is good choice....unfortunitely it is very expensive to feed two large dogs with it. What you could do is feed a better quality kibble one meal, and raw another...or even 2-3 raw meals per week.

It does sound like your boy may have this problem no matter how much brushing or what you feed...it's common with BYB dogs because they don't breed for coat or looks...or almost anything...as long as they can breed.

I still suggest you get the dogs on a better kibble, you will need to feed far less of a good quality kibble....and it probably does not come out to cost much more per feeding. Canidae is probably the most cost effective food out of all of the super premium foods...it would be a good food to start with.

Gina