Pip has had some odd hair loss. I thought at first it was just excessive shedding but it started resulting in bald spots. Took her to get blood work done because now thinking its thyroid but all bloodwork came back normal. Fur seems to be filling back in but its the weirdest thing I have ever seen. The other possibility was seasonal alopecia which sort of seems just a name for something that cannot be diagnosed. if the fur grows back and it doesn't happen again then I won't worry about it. In the meantime, the amt of fur in my house is unbelieveable and she's pretty tired of my poking at her and looking at it. Take a look! and this is after some of the hair has grown back,....
and last but not least, not to be outdone, Sidney ended up with a wart in her ear the size of a grape or a little bigger. Similar to the warts that she has developed all over her body, kinda look like cauliflower. But this was blocking her ear canal when the ear flap was done and resulted in a nasty nasty ear infection and the wart itself was painful. So, surgery was called for and that happened yesterday. She has stitches that will need to come out in about 2 weeks. She came thru the surgery fine and seems somewhat subdued but thats it. She's on some pain meds for a bit and I'll probably continue that only because I know it will keep her from getting spun up which she does easily. this picture is not for the weak,....at least I think its pretty gross
before after
6 comments:
wow, eventful! And not in a good way!
Glad to hear that you're seeing some improvement with Sarah, it's so hard to watch our eldery dogs age, isn't it?
For Pip, has she been scratching at all with this? Sometimes that can happen with a flea allergy, and a lot of folks are having problems with fleas this year when they haven't in past years. Even one flea bite can drive a dog with an allergy crazy. Also, not sure what vet you use (if it's Wendy, never mind, she already would have thought of all this! ;), but if they only did a simple T3/T4 thyroid test, it won't neccessarily catch a developing thyroid problem -- you really need a full thyroid profile at MSU (blood needs to be shipped out by your vet) or one of the other big vet colleges that offers that. Since thyorid is the most likely cause of that sort of alopecia, it's probably worth pursuing if you haven't already, or of it continues. Finally, there are other less common problems that can cause that sort of hair loss, including cushings disease, so that's something to talk with your vet or Wendy about too.
And glad to hear that Sid's wart is gone! I'm sure she'll heal quickly.
Here's wishing you a less eventful week for the coming week!
Gah, I can't believe that Sarah is 14.5 years old! Sorry about Pip - I have no advice other than more thyroid testing as Shelley suggested. Finally Sid gets mentioned and some pictures (ick!). I hope she recovers quickly.
Bad boy Jet is having dental surgery next week to remove broken teeth which have resulted in him breaking out of crates in the last month. I've told him that any further teeth breakage will result in him dealing with the pain for the rest of his life!
How did the surgery go?
Sarah is a day by day now, we had a very bad couple of weeks but she seems to be back on track. She got overmedicated from some new stuff I was trying and was so sedated she could not walk, eat or anything. Her lar par is awful and when not sleeping she is panting open mouth all of the time. But she can still move around and eats with as much enthusiasm as one can have at 14 plus so its hard to figure out what to do. But then there are the episodes of dementia that result in her going to the bathroom in the house that require 1hr plus clean and I start to wonder. She's gonna make me make this decision for her I know, her heart is strong, her spine is not and that is what is causing a lot of the walking issues
Yes, without even knowing anything else I could tell you that Sarah would probably make you make the decision. You'll just know when it's the right time. You've had a wonderful, long journey with her, haven't you?
Jet was fine though his bloodwork was a bit off for kidney and liver functions though not enough to be something I'm going to worry too much about though they did give him iv fluids as a precaution. The vet I have here is really, really great and I knew he was in good hands and they called me just before surgery and as soon as he woke up. Now he's busy turning the shaved spot on his leg (where they had the iv) into a nice lick granuloma. I had a horrible feeling all week that he was going to die during surgery - it was awful. I wasn't sure if it was intuition or just past experience so I forced myself to bring him and get it over with. Weird because I wasn't as upset over Jill's 2 surgeries.
I thought of that when you said he was going to surgery. I will never never never ever forget all of that with Toby, sometimes I can still hear your voice on my machine trying to get ahold of me, its awful, I felt so bad that I wasn't there or around to help you get there sooner, I really do think about it way more then I should I guess and this stuff with Sarah isn't helping,
I was thinking the other day how grateful I was for my friends back when Toby died. I'm really lucky to have had and to continue to have such great friends to look out for me.
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