Evanger's #GETPETHEALTHY Nutritionist Question of the Week

Question of the week from Marietta B:

When my dog has an allergic outbreak she gets little black dots on her belly. Do you know what this condition is called? #GetPetHealthy

Answer from our CNC: 

 Hi Marietta! Thanks for the question - the condition may just be called an allergic reaction, but there may be numerous health conditions that are associated with that.  So, we have a few questions:

1) Were there pigment changes in these black spots?  Black spots on the skin can be a number of things - hopefully just an allergic reaction, but it can be as serious as a tumor. 
If there are permanent pigmentation changes, then a veterinarian needs to look at them to make sure they're not malignant tumors.

2) On the other hand, if they look more like acne spots and there are temporary flare-ups, the spots could be environmental or food allergies.  Unfortunately, there's no way to say for sure what has caused them unless a veterinarian runs an allergy panel.  We recommend doing an allergy panel with your vet, or if you've made any observations as to when the flare-ups occur, try to do avoid those foods or environments.  If you do an  allergy panel, contact us afterwards and we can put the right diet together for you once we have established what the problem might be.