Hi, brand new here.

My husky is 2years old and loosing her guard hair.
she never had a lot/long guard hair except her neck and butt.

baby she was a fur ball, did her first shedding in autumn 2020
didn't seem to grow a lot of undercoat back for the winter, she didnt shed in spring 2021. in september 2021 she did a shedding but nothing massive still. and still shedding a bit on her butt at the moment, it's the only spot very dense.

the guard hair loss happened a bit in may too.  it's always been located where her guard hair is 2 times longer than the other part of her back.
seemed to have regrowth but now i'm not totally sure, when i check more her coat it don't looks like before, but the hole she had is filled, maybe it's still growing back

that's in may



now she's loosing more, a bit more toward her back.

that's now






i can't find a vet for the next month, they are all fun atm
not sure what to do now...

I have no idea what that is! But if you'll check back over the next couple of days I'm sure one of residents will be able to suggest something.

It'd help if you'd give some more information. Though it's often superfluous, and idea of where you are located sometimes helps. For example, I have two huskies in the American desert - one, and Alaskan Husky, sheds very lightly and the other, a Siberian, shed quite a bit less than others I've had.

Another item of interest is what are you using to groom her. Furminator and its like seem to do more damage than good (opinion.)

thanks for the reply!

i live in quebec, canada, we currently have snow at the moment, our temp drop a lot in winter,
can't say if she's pure siberian but she don't seem to have that alaskan look

she has short leg(she barely reach the 20 inches in height, and is not that big(around 43lbs), for a while i wasn't sure if she had growth problem but on her last visit, everything looked fine,

spayed last february

i brush her with this, on her first shedding, i used a silk brush and it removed too much.

it's a little odd, but not unheard of. My big husky has cowlicks on his butt that if I spend time trying to flatten them out will turn into something somewhat similar, though not quite as almost cut with scissors looking. Kinda looks more like a lack of undercoat allowing the guard hairs to lay funny. How does the skin underneath look? Dandruff? Red? If the skin underneath is healthy looking I wouldn't be too terribly worried about it unless things start to bald. There are many things that can cause hair to grow funny (like cowlicks) or early skin damage that prohibits normal hair growth in dogs that were injured or had skin infections.

the skin looks good, kinda hard to see so, she does have undercoat at that spot.
it does looks like scissor cut, it's like a whole row of guard hair gone.
in the third pic i brushed her in the other way to see more under her fur, it's like she's missing a 2nd row toward her tail

if I pinch the spot, i can pull out guard hair easily
i did it a few times

I don't recognize that brush can you give the brand / model so I can look at it, please? You said you used a "silk" brush the first time, do you by chance mean a "slicker brush?" I use one on my two and it does seem to gather a lot of hair but the dogs don't object as if it's being pulled out.

That's not a lot of hair to be loose.  With my Alaskan I can pull loose hair out easily, even after a good brushing - in fact, it seems as if a good brushing make it so that guard hair are easy to pull loose.  (( and yes, he objects if I pull hair that are still firmly attached! ))

It seems as if everything is busy this time of year - school's closed so parents can take their kids to the vet with them.  Even my vet who can normally "squeeze someone in" is having to say "not this week"

I'd be interested in what your vet has to say.

oops sorry, yeah it's a slicker brush ,been more than 1 year since i used it.

i cant post a link yet so
the green brush is from costalpet : Safari Dog Single or Double Row Undercoat Rake

i tried a video
the difference in volume on her back is where she started to lose guard hair first
more toward the back i can't really pull hair
the clump i pinch is kinda all is left of guard hair at that spot, more toward side there almost none left, it's only undercoat.
it's like she's shedding all her guard hair near the tail



but white on white and quality dropping on upload, its hard to see a difference :/

i can only see the vet next month, every other clinics dont take new clients.
if it goes bald i can go to the emergency clinic.

Squirt sheds all year and doesnt really blow her coat. Shes half sibe. Short and about 35 lbs.y shepherd had similar coat issues and we mostly resolved it by adding an all in one vitamin and using a people hair brush and the discovery that he was allergic to anything with feathers.

Thoughts would be either a skin issue(mange/parasites/fungal/allergy) or a vitamin or mineral deficiency

Have you noticed any chewing or licking?

So you could try an all in 1 vitamin or maybe benadryl of any chewing or licking is also involved until you get to a vet to see if that makes any difference.

Sorry that was so broad it borders unhelpful. We went through hair issues for over 2 years before we discovered the severity of the bird allergy and also a mineral difficiency.

it's kinda what i suspect, something like zinc or maybe thyroid since it's more common for them.
she never had a blood work yet.
flea/tick treated during the summer.

she never try to touch the spot, she dont seem itchy anywhere. skin has a nice pink color

her pads can get pretty rough in winter, another thing hinting toward zinc maybe

i have zinc and melatonine tab safe for dogs, i could try that until i see the vet.

she tried a lot of different food before, she was very picky younger. food allergy would be my last guess i think.

You don't want to change anything until you see the vet. Will hamper any diagnostic thinking.

I have to agree with @amymeme here. You really shouldn't ty to fix anything till you've seen your vet. You never know but what you try will exacerbate or hide the problem. You want the vet to see what you see.

NB: you're not dealing with a critical situation here, a few weeks won't make a significant difference BUT you adding vitamins, for example, might.
If you were dealing with a critical situation then, of course, you do what you can as quickly as you can - maybe to save your dogs life.

Alopecia x maybe and its more common in solid white dogs of Nordic breeding. If your vet doesnt see alot of huskies you might want to bring it up.

Lostmaniac wrote:

Alopecia x maybe and its more common in solid white dogs of Nordic breeding. If your vet doesnt see alot of huskies you might want to bring it up.

Exactly one of my thoughts. Though, if I remember correctly, there is black skin discoloration as well (not all, and maybe not initially, its been a while since I looked this up.)

i'll wait and look up all the info i can get on that, thank you

lil update, someone cancelled at the vet and they called me to take the spot.

so we went, vet checked her etc, the vet already knew about alopecia X, and it's her first guess since the skin looks perfect and hair loss is the only symptom,
we gonna try melatonine for a while, if nothing change or it get worse, a biopsy if her skin could help to understand more

thyroid problem would be her 2nd guess, but without other symptoms, she wants to focus on alopecia first

@Draylen thanks for that follow-up. Here's hoping for some good results!!

I don't post a lot here and read when I can. I've been exactly where you are with my nearly all white husky. I'm glad you were able to get in to see a vet and that they have an understanding of the breed - that is so important. My boy had a similar issue as this which I was able to help repair the hair to about 95% by adding Catalina oil to his food daily. I am also in Canada (Ontario) and order it from Smart Earth out west. I noticed a difference in less than two weeks. He has also had major surgery 6 months before (TPLO & meniscus) and had a patch where the fur was not growing at all. Within a week we saw fuzz growing back and now 6month later being on the oil you'd never know his fur had even been shaved. This boy (I have 3) who is now 9 was also diagnosed at 2 with zinc deficiency and grain intolerance so I'm not sure if these played a part in the hair loss issue last year. Both the zinc and grain hairless issue also affected his skin but last year it was just his fur so I knew it was something different this time and not needing a zinc adjustment (we give him Zinpro on his food). Catalina oil is a high Omega and Vitamin E oil often used in the equine industry that is safe to use on dogs. Do some research and I'm sure you'll come to much the same conclusion.

We have the same thing with one of ours, guard hair gone on flanks and tail. She looks white no longer grey and white.  Fur looks like a broken coat.  We also have black skin where she has no fur on each back end.  Tried Melatonin  per vet but no help.  Tried Zinapro zinc supplements per skin vet but no help. Skin vet wanted to micro needle, no thank you. New vet thinks Alopecia but will need a skin punch to determine. She received a clean bill of health other than this so we will just watch for now.  Ours came from a well known breeder, full Siberian.

I’m with @Lostmaniac looks like Alopicia or maybe Alopicia X.

Sibemom, the skin will turn black where too much sunlight is getting through to protect the dog. Once the fur grows back this black skin will begin to flake off and return to pink. Our dog had his entire back end shave for surgery and all the skin blackened once he started going back outside. My one boy has a bad zinc deficiency and I can assure you that is not the issue here. Try upping his Omega & vitamin E on each meal with a daily supplement like the SmartEarth Catalina oil I mentioned above. it truly was the only thing that worked for us. His back end looked identical to this and now you'd never know he ever had an issue.