Ever had your dog get a "Hot Spot"?

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On Monday night while taking a swim I noticed a spot about the size of a quarter on one of my dog's cheeks that looked raw, not bleeding, just bare skin. I figured it was from playing with the other dogs since they like to play rough and pull on each others cheeks a lot. By the time I got home from work Tuesday night, it looked like this.

duke-hotspot.jpg


I've owned 11 dogs in my life and had never seen this before. It was like something was eating his skin, and something with a voracious appetite. I did some searching and found it to be a hot spot. I took him to the vet on Wednesday to be sure and they confirmed that's what it was and shot him up with a steroid and gave me 2 weeks worth of antibiotics.

I read that it could be caused from a number of things, like a bug bite or swimming/staying wet. He loves to swim, so I'm guessing that was the main cause, or a bug bite plus swimming and staying wet gave a nice spot for some bacteria to go to town.

So a word from the wise, dry your dogs off after swimming!
 
Ya, our golden gets one every now and then. It's mostly from swimming I guess. Most of the time they are in the same spot as the one your dog has. I think it's cause it tends to stay wet there longer.
 
My Lab used to get hot spots all the time right under her throat. She swims a lot and and used to paw at her wet collar. For most of the summer now, I let her go collar free and it has made a huge difference. One other thing is to always take the wet collar off and dry her neck off as best you can.

That looks very very sore for your poor dog. You might want to get an elizabethan collar while he's healing.
 
We've had him for almost 5 years and never had this happen. Needless to say, it freaked me out a bit when I came home from work to see that. :eek: He doesn't wear a collar, ever. I tried to shave the hair around it with trimmers to let the air help dry it out, and I realized just how thick his coat is in that area. It probably stays wet for quite a while after swimming, so yeah, now I know to dry him off afterwards.

Good news is that it has started to heal up pretty quickly. Within a day of the steroid shot and starting the antibiotics, the spot dried up and scabbed over and is already down to about half of what it was.
 
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