My dog has hair loss, chews paws, odor, and waxy ears. What's wrong?

Question

My dog is a shih tzu and I have taken her to several vets due to she is losing her hair and chewing her paws and she has an odor to her. She has ear wax on the hair of her ears and is even getting skin tags too. I have asked them if this could be a yeast infection and they tell me no but it is aweful. What do you do for this? Pet's info: Dog | Shih Tzu | Female | spayed | 7 years and 4 months old | 12 lbs

Jennifer Summerfield, DVM CPDT-KA · Accepted Answer

Hi there. Hair loss, excessive chewing on her paws, a skin odor, and waxy discharge or debris in the ears are all very common signs of allergies in dogs. This could be a food allergy, or an allergy to something in the environment. Other possible causes would include a bacterial or fungal skin infection, or skin mites (mange). I'm not sure what kinds of testing and treatment have already been done, so it's hard to give specific advice on what the next recommended steps would be. Allergy testing, and/or a diet trial with a prescription hypoallergenic food such as Hills z/d or Purina HA may be helpful to try and get a diagnosis. For symptomatic treatment, a short-term course of steroids and antibiotics might be a reasonable place to start, so you can certainly discuss this with your vet if it hasn't been done already.

My dog has hair loss, chews paws, odor, and waxy ears. What's wrong?

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