Rottie with a beautiful coat yet has dry skin......

by Charlotte
(erie)

My 2 year old male rottie (Zues) has a beautiful coat, very shiny... I am unsure what is causing him to have this dry skin.. not sure if it his diet or just the time of year..

He is not to keen on just dog food in his bowl (he gives you a look like are you kidding me it's very funny). I cook about 5lbs of chicken a week for him as well as wheat pasta and carrots to put in with his large breed dog food.. Is this good for him? If not could you please give me some other options to mix with his food that will be better for his health.....


Hoping to be doing the right thing by dog... He is a very large part of my life.....


Hi Charlotte,
Zues is a beautiful boy and he certainly looks healthy enough!

Rottweilers tend to suffer from canine allergies (which usually show up as skin problems), they also can have sensitive skin.

At this time of year it's often very dry, both outside and inside, and this can dry out your dog's skin. So can bathing, so make sure if you bath Zues that you use a very gentle, yet moisturizing shampoo.

You can try adding fish oil supplements to his daily diet, or even a little fish oil/olive oil to his food as you're making it yourself.

I don't feed home-made food to my dogs, so I'm not very familiar with this. I do know that it's very important to get the nutritional balance right though, especially for these large breeds. This webpage might help you as it has tons of tips and advice about creating a nutritionally balanced home made diet for dogs... Homemade Cooked Diets for Dogs.

Feeding a raw diet (eg. BARF diet) is popular with many owners of large breeds, and you might want to check out this page which has info. on that method... Raw Food Diet For Dogs.

Hope this helps, best of luck with Zues :)