The development of an effective electromagnetic-based skin cancer detection system requires an accurate dermal layer characterization. As an initial step towards modelling human skin tissues and building a microwave system for human skin scanning, animal trials are usually performed starting with characterizing and modelling of animal skin tissues. This paper presents in-vitro permittivity measurements of excised canine head skin tissues in the frequency range of 1–13 GHz. Moreover, a comparison of modelled results for canine samples with human skin tissues across a wider band of 1–50 GHz indicates that Ridge Back Cross skin tissues provide a similar trend to the human skin characteristics and can serve as a possible alternative for testing the envisaged skin cancer detection system.