Dog External Parasites Symptoms - Scratching, Excessive Licking, Dandruff & Hair Loss

No matter how hard you try to keep your dog’s coat lean and healthy, skin parasites are still so common and whenever possible will hop onto to your dog. Dog fleas will create considerable problems for your dog in warm climates, while mange mites and lice are usually transmitted through direct contact with other dogs. Ticks can be a problem, especially in areas where they transmit serious infections.

The common signs and symptoms of external parasites are scratching, excessive licking, dandruff, hair loss and visible parasites.

Fleas are mahogany colored and long legged parasites that spend most of their time in carpets and upholstered chairs, hopping onto a dog’s fur for a meal. Some dogs are allergic to the fleas’ saliva left in the bite wound and scratch intensively. Most dogs are just irritated as fleas walk all around their body biting them. Note that fleas often leave shiny black droppings in the fur.

Sarcopies manage mites burrow into the skin, mostly tip of the ears, and cause them to become scabby, crusty and itchy. They cause intense irritation, frantic scratching and subsequent hair loss and body sores.

Cheyletiella mites are big enough just to be visible to human naked eyes. They produce copious dandruffs over the back of a dog known as ”walking dandruffs”. Serious infestation causes skin scaling but limited itching.

Lice are visible to the human eye, and move around on the dog’s skin biting them. They also lay and stick their glistening white eggs, called “nits” to the fur. They are intensely irritating and are spread around by direct contact.

Ticks hope onto dogs’ fur and land their mouthpiece into their skin. They always swell with blood and become engorged, brownish white and pea size. Serious tick problems can even cause paralysis.

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