I have a 10-month old 90-lb male Bernese Mountain Dog. When I got him at 2 months old I was feeding him Iams Large Breed Puppy, but at about 7 months old he began having diarrhea and, even though housebroken, would go on the floor. There was also minimal blood in his stool. My vet put him on a steroid treatment. It helped until the treatment was over and then it went right back to bad. I switched his food since it was the simplest and most cost effective thing I could do at the time. I began feeding him Nature's Recipe Easy-to-Digest Large Breed Puppy (the cost was most comparable to Iams). He's been doing well over the past few months on it with absolutely no digestive issues. However, he has begun losing great amounts of hair on his backside and it is thinning drastically. His skin in that area is very dry and flaky. Also, I can't see much of a weight gain (only 8 pounds in 2.5 months). His appetite hasn't diminished and he's still eating. I've thought of putting bacon grease or some other type of animal fat in small amounts on his food, but with his previous allergies I'm hesitant to do so. What do I do about the hair loss and weight issue? I've been giving him omega3 fish oil and vitamin E for two weeks, but not a lot is changing.

Hi,
First thing...no bacon grease. Recently a friend had her pup diagnosed with Pancreatitis ( ?) after putting bacon grease on her food, and it was a very small amount.

I am not a vet, but I would have his thyroid checked. Riley had the same issue with the fur / dry skin. He also had some digestive issues and it was thyroid.. Easy to diagnose and easy to treat. Mention it to your vet.

Hope this helps, and let us know how your baby is doing

Thank you for the advice. I have a vet appointment this weekend and I will update the thread when I get some news. I'm hoping for the best. Someone on another site suggested to me that it could be something called EPI. I am really hoping that it is not!

Could be an allergic reaction or a parasite... let us know what the vet says. NO extra grease or fat in the food.... it's very unhealthy to feed them pure fat like that ... and it can cause major issues as mentioned above.

hwhite 84 has a good suggestion. One of my berners experienced hair loss. Allergy tests proved that he was allergic to a lot of what we were feeding him. We changed to food made from fish and the recovery was almost immediate. He still has a couple of environmental allergies...they are a little easier to deal with. Ask your vet about the blood test. It is not cheap ($300 or so) but is easier than trial and error - especially constantly changing food and trying different meds.
Good luck.