Dandruf flakes.

I've been grooming my dog of her undercoat to help shedding and I've gotten to the worst part, the tail bone, right behind the tail at the rear of her back. The rest of her fur and skin looks great but this area, when I brushed under her top fur and pull the fur up to get at it really good I noticed a lot of flakes that weren't there before I started going under her fur. There were no knots there, just thick fur.

She is a med/long haired mixed breed senior dog and I don't know if it is just really hard for her to clean this area. I bathe her probably once a month and the rest of the time just put her in the bath and get her feet if it is rainy and her feet get dirty. I use the oatmeal bath shampoo usually with conditioner.

I've never noticed this on her before and this is the only part of her body with this problem.

A lot of the time skin & coat condition is diet related. What are you feeding her?
This can also happen if the shampoo is not rinsed completely out. Its more common than you think, I've seen it in that area before as well.
What brand of shampoo do you use? While oatmeal is supposed to be good, unfortunately not all brands/formulas are created equal.

She is on Canidae now and previously Diamond Senior. I use the 8 in 1 shampoo, either the oatmeal or the conditioning. It's possible I didn't rinse completly but I do try to make sure that I do with her hair being so thick. I also use occasionally the Lipiderm oil suppliment to help with her skin and coat and occasional scrambled egg in her kibble.

What brand shampoo would you suggest for both the long haired senior and the doberman pup? Here is a picture of the senior for comparison.

Hey HB.........what up?? hehehe it's me from DT LOL

Our girl Phoebe...(going on 8)......black & white girl below, started having issues with flakes & redness of the skin on her back about 4 inches right before her tail and on her shoulder blades. She ate good kibble, but it did include corn......so we switched around to find something that worked better..........NO LUCK for her.

Of course everyone recommends fish oil, or fish in diet.......tried that too. There was some improvement, but not enough for me. So I was reading somewhere.........can't find it for you, sorry...but I was reading something about Oatmeal IN the diet that helps skin/fur. I figured hog wash, because you see over and over that dogs do not need grains. But I figured what the heck??

I started giving her 1 cup of Oatmeal mixed in her kibble a few times a week. Within 3 weeks there was a drastic improvement for her. And now of course they eat Homecooked and it includes oatmeal everyday.........you would never know she had an issue at all.

Will this work for your girl.......who knows?? Thought I would share. You may want to go the fish oil route first because that is what I hear most often recommended.

Thanks Angie. I do use what they call Lipiderm that contains fish oil and vitamin E and then found some chews that have it in them that I've been using for her and the pup. I'm going to try the oatmeal. At 13 I try to find ways to spoil her rotten so maybe she'll like it. Her fur looks wonderful everywhere except for the hips where it looks like fluffed up cotton. I've always had the worst problems with this area on her. She gets so frustrated while being brushed and the dobes just beg for it. This is the first time I've ever noticed dandruf on her though. On another note she's never spent so much time indoors since Cleo died, maybe the artificial heat 24/7 during the winter did this.

HB, if she has been in alot for the winter that could definitely cause the dry skin and dandruff........I think I would try not doing anything different for awhile now that sping/summer is here, it may go away on it's own.

Then you know you'll need a humidifier.........hehehehehe, dogs gotta love em'

hmm, this is what happened to Hershey, and Lucky! Shampoo wasn't out all of the way. Stubborn animals. Rinse her off maybe? Well, nevermind, do what the others gave ya first. I haven't had much experience with dogs, only Hershey, and my grandparents dogs, but I barely got to see their dogs, and now Whisper. Good luck with this!

She is due for a bath now because of the rain and the furry, muddy paws so I'll do a nice conditioning bath for her and make sure to rinse extra good, and then again.

I run humidifiers all the time upstairs for the reptiles but never thought to run extra ones downstairs for the dogs. I just need a great, big, huge, pet room.

Since she's being fed a great kibble, I think you're just looking at dry skin...possibly weather related?

Also, bathing MORE frequently with a hypo-allergenic non-detergent shampoo can make a huge difference...it cleared up my Melvin's dandruff after a month or so. We gets bathed with Earthbath's hypo-allergenic shampoo (it has no color/scent/other irritants), and it's really helped.