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In the United States, neither academic nor practical veterinary medicine currently provides for specialization in animal dermatology. Veterinary practitioners and academicians alike are acutely aware of the importance of primary skin diseases and cutaneous manifestations of systemic diseases, and must diagnose and treat them as best they can. Yet no discrete group within the profession has dedicated its time and effort to the development of a body of knowledge, either through clinical experience or basic experimentation, which can be discerned as a science of the cutaneous structure, functions, and disorders of animals. It is true that many case reports are available from the literature and from professional discourse. Various pieces of research have dealt with diseases of animals that have cutaneous manifestations. Rarely, however, in the course of clinical practice or study, have the basic pathogenetic and pathophysiologic factors in cutaneous disorders been identified in an effort to provide solid