Balding ears

Argh this dog.

So I noticed 2? days ago that Cajun's ears are pretty much hairless. I can't honestly say how long they've been this way. She was lying next to me and I was petting her head, and I don't remember what occurred first: seeing the hair loss, or feeling nothing but skin.

She's not itchy at all and her hair everywhere else appears normal. It seems really limited to just... balding ears. I switched her food last week, not sure why that would cause this and again I'm not even sure how long this has been going on in the first place.

20150218_232840 by cinSun9, on Flickr

20150218_233124 by cinSun9, on Flickr

20150218_233154 by cinSun9, on Flickr

Any ideas? I can't blame this on hormones now that she's spayed lol. Thyroid panel was normal 2 months ago. She's had hair loss/a skin infection on her neck, but the infection resolved with antibiotics and the hair grew back when I changed her collar. This is just weird to me.

There's no redness anywhere at all? Or flaking?

I mean, honestly her ears almost look like they've been shaved like a horse's.

Very strange. I hope others have better ideas than me and hopefully it's nothing serious.

You might want to get a thyroid check done imo.

Was her thyroid normal, or low normal?

T4 was low but everything else looks pretty decisively normal.

Screen shot 2015-02-19 at 9.57.38 AM by cinSun9, on Flickr

I cut it out, but normal values for the TGAA are 0-35%. So she's very normal at 3%. I'd love her to just have a thyroid problem but I don't know. =/

There's your culprit. For Dobermans, that IS low. We would absolutely medicate based on those results, especially since she's got the hair loss as well.

A lot of vets won't medicate, but vets that know Dobermans will generally medicate on a trial basis to see if it helps.

I'll see if they humor me. It's kind of a running joke at work that every time my dogs have an issue - must be thyroid! one vet was convinced her hair issues were just related to being intact but that's obviously not the case now. Maybe I'll wait till Monday to bring it up when I see the vet who thinks I'm less crazy about this.

Could it possibly be cold weather related?

You could always send it to Dodds. It is cheaper to send bloodwork you have already run than to ship blood directly to her.

I've contemplated that as well. That's one of the things I don't like about working at a clinic though.... I don't want to feel like I'm stepping on anybody's toes by running and getting an opinion from someone else. I mean, I know that's a totally normal and logical thing for people to do, but still!

I think with Cajun though, things always seem to come back to me questioning her thyroid. And there obviously has to be some reason why she's losing hair. So maybe I will send it to Dodds if my vets make it difficult (I don't necessarily think they will... I usually just say "ok" when they say the blood is normal, don't think I've ever asked about a med trial).

the same thing is happening to Lincoln, only its the other side of his ears, like, right below the canal, like how cats sometimes get. He's not itching them or anything (at least I havent seen him or heard him itching) but he is losing his baby fur and growing his adult coat, so maybe thats it?