Dogs can get diseases, and there are many types of diseases that can attack our lovely pooch. From the serious and infamous rabies diseases to very common diseases like skin diseases, fungal infection and many more. Although skin disease like fungal diseases is pretty common and easy to cure, it can be such a nuisance for your dog and need to be removed quickly. If you want to know more about fungal diseases on a dog, what type of fungal diseases your dog might suffer, and how we can prevent or cure it, then you have come to the right place.
There are many types of fungal diseases. Some of them are easy to remove, and not so dangerous, but some of them can also become a threat to your lovely canine companion if you ignore it. A fungal disease might not so dangerous compared to any other disease like a bacterial infection, or virus but they can also prove to be quite an annoyance to your dog and you. There are many dangerous types of fungal diseases in dogs that you need to know in order to prevent them from attacking your dog. You need to be well informed, and quick to act before fungal diseases transform into much more complicated skin diseases.
The fungal disease tends to attack any dog that doesn’t have very good hygiene. The key to preventing fungal diseases on your dog is to keep your dogs always clean and healthy. To help you prevent any unwanted damage, and the fungal spreading more on your dog, you will need to identify any fungal diseases your dog might suffer too. To help you identify and diagnose which fungal disease that attacks your dog, we give you lists of many dangerous fungal diseases that can attack our lovely dog.
Fungal diseases can be annoying, make sure your dog doesn’t suffer from it
There are 2 types of fungal diseases in a dog, the first one is skin fungal disease that attacks your dog skin, causing them to be greasy, oily, and your dog is constantly scratching and chewing on certain body parts, and there is also internal fungal disease. Internal fungal disease is much more complicated, as they can also be very dangerous for every dog. Internal fungal disease attack on dog internal organ, like a respiratory system, causing your lovely dog to have severe coughing and hard time to breath. We will mention both of them, and explain in each of them.
1. Fungal Skin Disease
Ringworm
Don’t let the name ringworm fool you. This disease isn’t caused by a worm, but instead a fungal infestation. The name ringworm comes from the circular form in your dog skin when they are suffering from this disease. However, there is much other sign of this fungal disease such as hair loss, annoying itchiness, crusty and also flaky skin, greasy coat, brittle nails, and many more.
The ringworm now can be cured and prevented easily using antifungal medication, medicated bath, disinfecting your pet and your house. Although it is quite easy to cure, this disease is highly contagious, meaning that it can spread very quickly to one body to another. It can spread to any other animal, and even people, so you better watch it carefully if your dog seems to have ringworm.
Contact with veterinary care quickly to ask for antifungal medication to prevent this fungal disease spreading in your house.
Yeast Infection
Yeast is actually harmless, and you might find it in nearly every dog. However, if yeast started to overgrowth, turning harmless yeast colonies, into one big yeast infection, that’s when yeast infection started becoming a harmful disease for your dog. Yeast infection is a very common skin disease for a dog, nearly every dog owner had at least one or a few times on yeast infection, and it is quite easy to cure too.
Yeast infection often attacks any dog body parts, but they tend to attack body parts like ear, paws, neck, and back. If your dog suffers from the yeast infection, they might constantly itch certain body parts causing inflammation and infection on that body part. If the yeast infection is on your dog ear, you might see a bit yellowish green of dust, something flaky. Yeast infection sometimes also cause your dog to overproduce oil in their skin, causing a greasy coat around them.
2. Internal Fungal Disease
Blastomycosis
Blastomycosis is a fungal infection that attacks dog lungs, or sometimes also dog respiratory system. The fungal disease on the skin is already bad enough, but an internal fungal disease is much more dangerous than a skin disease. The internal fungal disease like blastomycosis can cause severe coughing on your dog, difficult to breathe, weight loss, poor appetite, and still many more dangerous problems.
The main cause of blastomycosis is that your dog inhales too much fungal spore. During your walk, if your dog sniffs on the ground too much, they may inhale various fungal spore on the ground. If your dog inhales too much fungal spore, a fungal colony will grow on your dog respiratory system, causing this severe respiratory problems in your dog.
This fungal disease is quite common in river and lake region, where the soil is a thriving environment for fungal to grow. If your dog seems to have a hard time breathing, constant coughing and produce too much mucus or saliva, consider going to the vet at once.
Histoplasmosis
Another internal fungal disease that is caused by fungal spore from the soil, except histoplasmosis is mostly found in the humid and temperate region. Histoplasmosis fungal spore thrives on any soil, but mostly found on birds or bat excrement.
If your dog has histoplasmosis infection, the symptoms might be like weight loss, severe cough and fever, vomiting, eye inflammation, and diarrhea.
To treat histoplasmosis, consider to quickly contact for veterinary care, so they can arrange for long-term fungal medication, anti fungal treatment. This internal fungal disease is quite hard to diagnose, so you might need to be careful about it.
So that’s the two dangerous types of fungal diseases in dogs you need to know. To be a responsible pet owner, you need to be well informed about these kinds of fungal diseases so you can take care of them quickly and properly.