zack's vet appointment today

[judy]

OK then, as to the meds.... I am a qualified Pharmacy Technician and I most certainly would not use meds that had been stored in a hot car! Most meds are even delivered to pharmacies either in a temperature controled vehicle or in temperature controlled cases - even using ice packs on lots of them as they definitely do need to be kept in a cool place.

thanks for this feedback!
i wasn't able to get the new antibiotics yesterday because they closed early. I'm going to get them tomorrow.
but i might go to a third vet, because it says on her website "specializing in diseases of the skin." I had taken zack to her when he was having colitis and vomiting in beginning, in february and liked her a lot, but she didn't figure out what the problem was and her treatments didn't help and she was recommeding barium studies, saying she was stumped, so i have continued with the vet who cured him, but i did like her and thought she seemed competent and experienced. so, since she is a skin specialist, i might, especially since the vet i usually choose won't be in til friday.

the thing is, zack seemed better, but i was still worried because he still had the lesions, though they looked better, healing, but the antibiotic issue was unresolved, and just not knowing what caused the illness, and whether it could happen again, i was feeling unsettled, not really in the right place to go on the long trip we went on yesterday and coming home today. Still zack had not scratched and acted itchy and agitated since Saturday. but all of a sudden tonight, that started again. I don't know if it was a coincidence but he went outside to bark at something (fireworks) and when he came back in maybe a minute later, he immediately started licking his paw, and then, he started rubbing his head and his body and digging in the pillows and acting agitated again.

maybe something out there is either biting him, there's very likely fleas out there, sand fleas i think, or maybe it's a plant. i don't know but i'm worried that the whole cycle will repeat where he starts acting like he's been poisoned, sleeping and laying all the time. I gave him benadryl and after that he was very relaxed and normal. at this point, i think it's pyoderma, he needs antibiotics, and something is causing the pyoderma, it's secondary to something.

Do you really think think that Zack was completely fine before you brought him home? I'm sorry, but I would be worrying if a newly arrived home pup suddenly started to get diarrhoea. Also, I would have thought that the breeder should have wormed him before her left there - not leave it to you!

He *was* dewormed, according to his medical records. What happened was bizarre. He was a happy playful little dog who i visited twice before i decided to get him. My fantasy was, i would go buy him, take him in my car, go to a pet supply place, we would have great fun. I thought all dogs love to go in the car, i even asked the woman i got him from if he had experience riding in a car and she said he was fine. I had a crate on the front seat. I put him in and started driving. almost right away, he started crying. Louder and louder. I pulled over immediately, i talked to him, i petted him, and i started driving again, and he started crying again, moaning, and loud crying. I drove a little farther, could see he was getting more and more distressed, pulled over again, got him out of the crate, held him in my arms and he cuddled into my arms and kept crying! I idn't know what was happening. It was heartbreaking. so much for my happy fantasy of him being excited to go in the car and be pals and everything. I didn't know what was wrong with him. Was he in physical pain? was it sadness or fear about leaving the home? was it somethign about the car? a noise the engine was making? but he continued to cry while i held him with the engine off, this went on for about 5 minutes or more. Finally, i had to keep going. I put him on the seat instead of in the crate so i could more easily stroke him, but he kept crying. then i held him in my lap while he cried but he didn't cry as much as long as i held him. before we got in the car, i'd visited at the home for at least an hour, he was running and playing with another puppy and with us humans, he was enjoying a bully stick, he was eating kibble, he was happy and appeared healthy, as he had on my other two visits. from the car, i called the woman and told her how he was acting. She said 'i guess you'll have to give him lots of tender loving care tonight." she was implying, i thought, that he was having an emotional reaction to leaving the people and animals he had bonded to.

When i got him home, about an hour or more later, i took him right to the backyard and he immediately had liquid diarrhea.

I contacted the woman by email the next day when the diarrhea was still there, and with blood. She said sometimes stress can lower the resistance and they can get infections, and she said she was mailing me some medications. She mailed me three medications, one of which was a worming medication, may have been panecure, i still have it. the meds got to me overnight, by tuesday, but i saw a vet on monday and had started a different treatment, flagyl, so i didn't use the meds she sent. i ended up seeing four vets, and three of them all tried things that didn't work, antibiotics, diet, homeopathy, and the fourth one tried deworming, and overnight he was fine. so, if i'd given the meds the woman mailed me, probably it would've saved him a month of illness. (he had 3 negative stool samples during that time).

the thing is, i kept thinking that it was wrong that he was sick the day i brought him home, as if she had given me a sick puppy, yet something about the whole picture, with his surprising reaction in the car on the way home, extreme distress, that gave her explanation some credibility. I looked into the puppy lemon laws, but in the end, she had provided me wiht what was probably the right medication right off the bat, and while i may have been able to win some money from her for my $1100 in vet bills, i didn't feel right about it because of the circumstances.

I must admit that I do use an awful lot of homoeopathy on my boys but flea and worm treatments are the both times that I do go towards conventional treatments.

I appreciate that--I'm ready now to give him Advantage or Frontline, if a vet says that it won't be harmful while he has these skin lesions. whenever it's safe to give it to him, im planning on it. i'm feeling better about it because of things people here have said.

Can you get a sensitive kibble over there? Have a look at the James Wellbeloved site here www.wellbeloved.co.uk and then see if you can get anything comparable - if it's a food allergy then this should be suitable for him as it doesn't contain any of the usual culprits for causing food allergies.

yes, there are several. I have the Natural Balance duck and potato. I've given him several simple ingredient kibbles at different times and he hasn't ever shown any bad reaction to any of them. I'm going to follow karlin's advice and just stick with one kind for now. I was varying the kind of kibble every couple of days for a couple of weeks. thanks for the website for wellbeloved.

[judy]

Have you any plants or flowers, etc. that he has been nosing around or in the garden..... Karlin has a thread of plants and stuff that they are allergic to. He may just be putting his nose and getting stung.

i just did a search for 'plants' in all available forums but didn't get anything.
i tried 'plant allergies' too. was it in the health library?

[Maxxs_Mummy]

http://cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=862

[bsam101]

Hi Judy,

I have two cavaliers that are almost 2 1/2 years old. The first year they had very loose stools. I changed their food to Natural Balance ultra and Solid Gold Bison for dogs under 20 pounds. They immediately improved. If they are stressed because of a vet visit or fireworks etc, they at times have loose bms. Sometimes a little colitis. It usually goes away when the stress goes away. They are happy go lucky pups but they are also very sensitve. Just recently I took them on a visit to a home that had many children. They were fine , but my boy had a loose bm shorly afterward.

My advice is find one food and just give him that at the same time every day. Get him into a routine. Good luck. The more stressed out you are the more Zack is going to feel. I know it is hard because I am the biggest worrier. Sometimes the vets do not take me seriously because they think I worry too much.

Take care and give him lots of kisses!!

[Karlin]

The list is actually poisonous plants so that may be the point of confusion.

[judy]

thanks to the link for the poisonous substance list. i bookmarked it. Unfortunately, i really have no idea at all what any of the plants in the backyard are called, except there is ivy, a lemon tree, a wisteria, a rubber tree. by coincidence, the apartment manager had a gardener come today about clearing the backyard of weeds. But i've been doing that so i don't have much. but he'll come next week and clear out more, and trim the trees.

from observing, i don't think zack is eating plants, although i can't be 100% sure. but i think that something in the backyard is either biting him, or he's rubbing against something that causes a reaction. but i don't really know of course.

Tomorrow morning i have an appointment with the vet that specializes in skin conditions. I have started him on liquid clavamox for pyoderma. I have him just eating Canidae all life stages right now, but am still looking into other kibbles. I'm spraying that water on him. if he starts scratching again, i'll give him benadryl. It seemed to help. I saw the doctor who had suggested the benadryl last week today when i picked up the antibiotic, he was walking through the reception area where i was and i asked about continuing the benadryl and he said yet, and if necessary, give it every 12 hours.

but today, no scratching, i mean not the kind that is unusual to me, that he's been having in the past week. He has had a little bit of normal type flea scratching that i'm used to seeing with dogs, and if the skin vet says it's ok, tomorrow, i'll put Advantage on him.

I am looking for something safe to treat the yard with, and considering giving him Program too. I bought program for him months ago but have hesitated, hoping to prevent fleas with garlic and stuff, but i am now going to go with the conventional stuff.

[Moviedust]

I'm glad Zack is feeling better, even if you dont have a clear diagnosis. It will be interesting to see what the specialist says. Bless you for spending all the money to see all these different vets!!

[Maxxs_Mummy]

I'm so glad he's feeling better. I get more worried about my furbabies when they are ill than I ever did about my human kids

We were thinking of putting a wisteria arch in our garden but I don't think it will be going out there now - not after finding it's poisonous!

I do have a holly and some daffodils but the dogs can't get to them as we have the area fenced off - we feed the wild birds there and the dogs eat the dropped seeds so we had to fence it off from them