Accepted Answer

This is actually very common in female dogs after raising a litter.

Every ounce of energy goes into pups not leaving much for coat and skin.

However, the pigment change may mean there is a hormonal issue triggering the fur loss too. Low thyroid levels can cause abdominal color to darken.

But if she is out in the sun much and the abdomen is furless from nursing dog skin does 'tan' and it tans silver or gray or almost black.

So a number of issues might be behind this.

If you have not wormed the mother dog you may want your vet to check a stool sample as pups have worms, mom cleans the pups and so mom has more worms that need to be eliminated. Intestinal parasites can cause coat loss as they 'steal' nutrition.

You can read about Alopecia X seen in this breed here

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_alopecia_x.html

If you do not see new hair coming in under the shed out old coat then you may want to have your vet check her over and do some blood work to try to detemine if this is a hormonal issue.

Hope this helps you!

 

Expert:	NancyH
Pos. Feedback:	99.5 %
Accepts:
Answered:	8/20/2009

Dog Expert:Rescue, Train,Breed,Care

30+ yrs dog home vet care & nursing, rescue, behavior&training, responsible show breeding, genetics