A Rough Summer -- September 5, 2013

Things were shaping up to be a nice summer. At the end of June, Cyan wanted to walk up the hill near our house, and of course, Bing and Tango came with us. We came back covered in grass awns from some previous crop; they were everywhere! Our shoes and socks were covered, and Tango was completely covered because the grass was so high that he was hopping and leaping to get anywhere. We brushed the dogs out the best we could afterward and cleaned up the awns off the floor as soon as we saw them because a few years ago we had an awful experience with a Foxtail going in one part of Acacia’s leg and out another. Foxtails have been known to kill a dog by going into organs.

Two evenings later, Bing lay at my feet as I watched a baseball game. He was snoozing away, and breathing like a pug. Jeez, I thought, he’s getting old! Preparing for bed, I went to take off his collar, and he squealed and pulled back.

Not able to make sense of it, I ignored it until the next morning, when he tried to bark during his usual morning ‘scream at mom for the tennis ball’ routine. The noise came out like a tiny squeak. “What???” I said to him…and he shrunk away as if in trouble. I knew immediately I had a problem, and put those few things together.

I had to work, so Pete took Bing to the vet. Being Bing, he had to be anaesthetized to be looked at. I had my definite theory about the grass awn, but the vet team was unable to see anything definite. What he did see, though, was a very swollen area near the epiglottis. The vet was not comfortable doing anything with this issue, and wanted me to have him looked at by a specialist. He came home on antibiotics and prednisone.

I spent the next three days trying to decide which specialty clinic in Philly to take him to. After hours of deliberation and phone calls, I decided to take him to University of Pennsylvania. There, they would have all of the equipment we might need, and the most up to date knowledge. My biggest challenge was that all of the clinics wanted us to drive down there for a consultation and do the procedure the next day. I have a dog who has a major anxiety issue, pants heavily in the car, can’t be touched, is more or less claustrophobic, and now has a partially closed airway. Driving to Philly (over an hour) and back again, and then back down again the next day seemed a bad choice. Leaving him alone overnight seemed like an equally bad choice. The one vet who would possibly see and treat him in the same day was on vacation.

Pete went with me to Penn; we were both extremely concerned for his health. We saw Dr Gross, an internist. She was AWESOME and I highly recommend her. Long story short, she managed to pull together multiple teams (anesthesiology, dentistry, radiology, and her internist team) to put him under and look at him THAT DAY. Apparently, this is unheard of! Not only was this great news, it gets better. All she found was a large area that had been swollen but had deflated. We could only surmise that he had a reaction to something that had gotten into his throat…such as a grass awn! She wanted us to keep him on the antibiotics and extend his prednisone for a few more weeks.

He wasn’t out of sedation by 4pm, and I had two classes to teach! So we had to drive back home so I could teach the classes, and then I would drive back at 9pm to get him….they were even willing to let me take him home that late at night!!!! Pete came through as my Knight in Shining Armor…he managed a short nap while I was teaching and offered…nearly insisted…that he be the one to drive back down to get him. Bing is my dog, and I really wanted to be responsible, but I knew how wiped out I was, and I was concerned about falling asleep. I relented, and Pete had Bing safely home by 12:30am. Whew!

Bing chose not to use his voice for about a week after that, and slowly his bark came back to what it had been. He had no raspy breathing, and no sensitivity to the touch. He healed beautifully and we were thrilled. He finished his prednisone at the end of July. I thought we were out of the woods.

Nope.

In the first and second weeks of August, I noticed that a wart he had on his snout was red, inflamed, open and weeping. Sometimes it bled. Trying not to panic, I took him in to get it looked at when Tango went in for his shots. The vet gave me options, and I chose to try some topical antibiotic for a week to see what happens. I just couldn’t bear the thought of more anesthesia for him to have it removed and biopsied. He went under twice in 5 days; that was enough for a while. I also had her look at his eyes, as they were bright red when he woke up that day, as were Tango’s. I had heard that ragweed was particularly bad that day, so I chalked it up to that. That was Thursday.

By Sunday night, Bing was dropping fur everywhere…both undercoat and guard hairs. He was ripping out his fur in big chunks on his elbow and his belly. I took a look and was horrified to see that his belly was bright red, bumpy and inflamed. We went right to the vet the next morning. Four scrapings for mange were negative (which doesn’t mean much) and all we knew was that he was having a major allergic response to something. A full third of the underside of his tail was one giant hotspot. We opted for antibiotics, a scrub, an ointment, eye ointment, and Benadryl. It was a VERY rough 5 days. And then there was the weekend, when I ran out of the scrub and the ointment. A student of mine mentioned Willard’s Water as a cure for hotspots, which essentially was what Bing had, and in between classes I ordered a bottle and paid for 1 day shipping. Boy, am I glad I did. I had read about Willard’s Water in the Whole Dog Journal years ago and told myself I’d never use it…it seemed too….strange. I don’t think I would treat hotspots solely with this product, but I am confident that it really speeded up healing.

Years ago I knew of a German Shepherd who lost most of his tail to amputation because he had a lesion and they simply could not get enough skin to close the wound. Bing’s hotspot was at the base of his tail; if this happened, he’d lose his entire tail. It was panicking at this thought that convinced me to get that Willard’s Water.

I believe that a few things have contributed to Bing’s Bad Summer. 1) A month of Prednisone. It is a miracle drug, and I don’t regret using it, particularly for an airway. But it takes a huge toll on the immune system. 2) He was sedated twice.  That has to take a toll. 3) I went away three times after that episode, and that is stressful for him. 4) This has been an absolutely horrible summer for rain and bugs and environmental assaults. And 5) Bing grew up on and has lived on a mostly raw diet. In the past few months, I have been feeding him a lot of good quality kibble. I think his body was simply not used to it, and being already compromised, he just couldn’t handle it. All of these things left his body open to environmental war.

So we are on the mend, and I really am hoping we don’t have yet another trauma. Harriet and Tango were not without their issues this summer, either. Harriet had some challenges with walking due to grooming pressure on her damaged spinal cord, and then had Vestibular issues with her ears. Tango had a reaction to his vaccines. I’ve had enough!

The take-home lesson for this is to really be careful not to tax our immune systems too much….we need them, and can’t abuse them!

Ali

 

 

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