Is chlorine making my black lab's fur fade and turn brown after swimming?

There are many nutrients required for healthy skin and coat color and any one of these can result in dulling and fading of the coat. Ensure he is receiving a well balanced, complete diet and consider converting to a skin support range in order to exclude this if he has no other signs of poor digestion/food absorption (chronic diarrhea or weight loss). Certain hormonal conditions such as cushings and thyroid disease can also affect coat condition and color, a full vet check and blood panel would be recommended to investigate this

Great question. Hypothyroidism is very common in labradors but can easily be diagnosed with a simple blood test performed by your local veterinarian. Seasonal alopecia can also occur but typically can be eliminated with routine bathing and grooming. Since your dog is un-neutered, much of your dog's nutrition is going into energy and activity, so be sure to feed a high quality diet with plenty of fat for energy and haircoat production. Usually the better diets are highly digestible and produce low stool volume compared to cheeper diets. Bottomline, if you're worried about thyroid disease, ask your veterinarian to pull blood and rule it out, otherwise feed great diet and bath/groom as needed to control hair loss. If the coat doesn't look right, then schedule an appointment to have it examined to check for other possible causes such as parasites, allergies, or nutritional causes, Good luck and thanks. Steve Popish, DVM

Smokey could definitely be experiencing some changes to his coat due to growth. I would certainly suspect this particularly if he is not having any sort of itchiness. Thyroid disease is common in dogs, but very uncommon in younger pups. I don't believe I have ever seen a hypothyroid dog under the age of 6 or 7 years. Sunbleaching can happen but it wouldn't cause actual loss of hair. Hair loss in absence of itching is typically due to something like you have described, an endocrine condition, or some sort of immune mediated condition. As long as the hair loss hasn't been spreading considerably and there are no other clinical signs of illness, I would continue to monitor the situation carefully for a few more days before going to the vet. If there is itchiness associated with the problem, Smokey will likely require some therapy in the form of both topical and systemic drugs. Hope this helps. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

That could be completely normal and if there are no other signs related to it (like itch, any bumps, lumps or any skin lesion) there is nothing to be worried about. Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further. Please find the time to give us a feedback about the consultation as that will be used to improve our service.

Injury/insult to follicles, sun exposure and inappropriate nutrition can all result in pigment changes to the fur. I recommend to have Coulson examined by his veterinarian to look for injury/insult and to discuss his diet to make sure it is balanced and complete. Best of luck.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! This is possibly due to allergies. A secondary infection is likely and also needs to be addressed. There are many things that can cause allergies though in most cases they can be broken down into 3 big categories: flea, food and environmental allergies. Allergies are usually worked up in a stepwise fashion starting with flea allergies as this is the easiest and cheapest to take care of. If not on a flea preventative, then it would be a good idea to get started on one. If already on one then it would be a good idea to change to something else (there are many new products out in the market). If not improved in 1-3 months then it is time to move on and check for food allergies by switching to a novel diet (new protein and new carbohydrate). If that does not seem to be the issue then you are left out having to check for environmental allergies which require blood and/or skin tests. Allergies can be very frustrating to deal with at first but so rewarding at the end when we are able to treat them effectively!

Kesi may have one of a couple of different things happening to cause the color change in the hair. One possible reason is because there is some irritation of the skin. This can cause the hairs to grow darker, but usually only happens if the irritation has been going on for long time. If she is losing hair more often, is itchy or has more dandruff than normal, then she may have some irritation going on that will need treatment. Another possibility is that Kesi has a genetic condition that causes the hair to get darker or even get shorter. There is not much that can be done about these conditions, but the good news is they are not very harmful. Changes in temperature may also cause the hair to grow darker in certain breeds. This may explain why it would get darker after swimming in the sea. However, it would take longer than two days for the change in hair color to occur. Note if Kesi had any other changes in the past few months or year. This can help a veterinarian determine other causes if you would like to bring her in for a consult. I hope this helps.