While we all know that beauty goes deeper than the skin, when it comes to pet dermatology, we’d like to stay a little shallow. Your pet’s coat is a reflection of his or her overall health; it’s also a reflection of how pets respond to their environment, their immune system or even how their breed specific make up.

Often an animal’s coat can be affected by ectoparasites such as fleas or mites or allergies to the environment (atopy). Some animals can have immune disorders that compromise the skin barrier or endocrine issues that affect the coat. 

Animals, like people, can also develop cutaneous tumors both benign and malignant. At Urban Animal we evaluate skin problems from every aspect: environment, flea/tick protection used, breed, age, underlying medical conditions and more. 

Skin lesions are microscopicially evaluated and if we need to dig deeper such as with a biopsy, dermatology consult, allergy testing or baseline labwork, we do.

At Urban Animal, we know that beauty may lie beneath the skin, but a healthy vibrant coat coupled with a certain je nais se quoi is a head turner whether it be out on the cat walk or the dog run.