Accepted Answer

There are 3 possibilities here.

First, he may be rooting around with his nose causing physical trauma as he sticks his nose in and under things. That will cause abrasions and scabs. Toughing it will be painful. Steroids and changing his behavior will help that.

Second, he may have a condition called nasal hyperkeratosis. This is a condition where the skin of the nose grows excessively fast. This will create many nests of free floating clusters of skin cells. This looks very rough and the surface of these dogs looks like there is peeling off of the nose. There is a creme that we use for this condition called KERASOLV, which dissolves the hard surface skin by using salacylic acid.

And third, there are two diseases of the nose that causes the skin to blister. One is called Pemphigus and the other is discoid lupus. These are autoimmune diseases where the body destroys part of the glue that holds the skin cells together. High dose systemic steroids plus a steroid creme will help initially. We also use an oral combination of Tetracycline (an antibiotic) and niacinamide to keep this under control long term.

Your vet will need to differentiate these three conditions. The best way to do that is to do a skin biopsy of the nose and let a pathologist tell them what the disease process is.

Expert:	Dr. Louis Gotthelf
Pos. Feedback:	97.5 %
Accepts:
Answered:	8/22/2009

Veterinarian

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Owner of a small animal clinic and an ear/skin clinic 31 years