Why can't life ever be simple???

Tandie was recovering really well from her operation but after a restless night I figured she wasn't 100%. She spent most of the night licking herself and when I checked her this morning her wound looked a bit weepy. She was otherwise in her usual good form.

My OH took her to the vet first thing and the vet wasn't too worried. He just put her on a stronger antibiotic. Again he didn't give any aftercare instructions for keeping the wound clean and Billy forgot to ask :sl*p: We'll keep an eye on it but anybody know if there's something we can be doing in the meantime to keep it clean and sterile?

The other thing is the vet was concerned about her heart murmur and said it's pretty bad, especially for a young dog. He was surprised we were exercising her at all with it :shock: :? Hello? Surely keeping her reasonably fit is good for her heart? We don't exactly bring her on 6 mile hikes. She doesn't even get to run free because we keep her leashed at all times. He said when we bring her back to get her stitches out we should get her onto heart medication straight away.

I don't know if I'm freaking out because of what the vet said, but she does seem a bit extra moany this evening and she seems to be breathing heavier than usual. Maybe it's time we looked at getting a chest x-ray, or would a second opinion be a better first option here?

I thought you said her murmur was low and could have been exaggerated by her being in heat? That's a bit odd if she's suddenly gone from having a very negligable murmur to one that's significant! Maybe you should try another vet, just for a second opinion? And possibly it may go down again once she's fully recovered from the op. If there's a little infection there perhaps that's making the murmur more pronounced at the moment? I don't know any of this, I'm just chucking out ideas.

I put Lily into a babygro and this kept her from fussing with her stitches.

I just cut a hole for her tail:



They are very cheap at any thrift shop!

On MVD: all vets have different opinions. The vet I saw the day I brought her for a check is one who doesn't recommend starting a dog on heart meds til they are actually having symptoms like coughing but my regular vet, Susan, would indeed put a dog like Tandie onto meds, probably Pimobendan. I cannot see any reason to not exercise a dog that is well able for walks and my vets didn't advise against this -- indeed he remarked on how active and happy she was.

As with a lot of things, there are no totally right answers. You have to think about your own approach and what makes the dog happy; weigh up different opinions and go with what seems to make the most sense.

Take Leo for example. Every time his heart beat accelerates, it potentially advances his syringomyelia because it causes the fluid around his brain and in his spine to circulate faster, which is known to cause syrinxes to develop faster or worsen. So to give Leo the best chance of a long life, the ideal would for him to never be active at all and never get excited. But what a poor life for a dog! My approach is to give him as normal a life as possible but not get him overly excited if it isn't necessary. Hence if I have him at the Dogtrainingireland.com facility, I let him do the easier agility bits but not jumps and I don't run him around the course. But I let him play fetch and chase Jaspar because he loves doing it. Fortunately he is a pretty low key dog anyway so he doesn't always want to be frantic with activity.

Tandie could spend years with her heart at its current level. She could remain very stable and have a normal lifespan. Or it could advance. There's no way of knowing. An x-ray might be a good idea, to have an image of her heart right now. You can talk about that with your vet. It really depends on how active you want to be in managing her MVD and tracking progression, if any.

When my female rabbit ate her stitches it took a while for me to spot it. The vet was brilliant. He had her in each night and cleaned up her wound and gave her an antibiotic injection because it was impossible to administer it orally.

My sister kept her dog's wound clean by using a mild solution of salt and water.
Try not to worry she will be fine. Give her a few days and she'll be great.

Cecily, I agree with Brid. Salt water is probably the best. I'd use boiled water though to make sure it was 'clean' and wait until it was tepid so you don't shock the poor love (too hot or cold).

Hope she soon gets better and yes, I think a chest x-ray might be the way to go about her heart. Then you can make decisions about second opinions or medications or whatever. :flwr:

Cecily, both Chocolate and Geordie were diagnosed with slight heart murmurs, by cardiologists.

I'm planning on taking them back this coming year to see if they need ultrasounds or x-rays yet.

Don't know if you have a cardiologist nearby, but it might be worthwhile to have her evaluated by one, then do follow-ups as needed. I think once the grade is diagnosed, they can be under the care of your regular vet.

It's difficult for a regular vet to grade a murmur.

The baby onsies worked really well for Cody. He didn't really bother his stitches much, but I left them on because he looked so cute icon_whistling . It's probably different for girls because it takes longer to heal, so they are more likely to mess with them. I would just make sure you measure poor little Tandie before you buy a baby onesie so that way you won't have to guess which size is best. (I miss-judged Cody, I think it was sub consciously that I didn't want to believe he is as big as he is!!) I hope she gets better soon. I have no experience with MVD, but I would think the infection would cause it to flare up more then when she is healthy. Best of Luck to you both.

Also worth noting that vets often give higher grades to murmurs than cardiologists do, so it can be worth getting an auscultation from a cardio at UCD. The cardiologist grade will be the correct grade. Vets often give a grade higher as they are less skilled at hearing and grading murmurs. For cardios, hearts are their main focus.

Hang on for a bit though as I want to see if we could arrange a group discount auscultation session for Irish cavaliers -- I need to ring the specialist at UCD.

Oh, just remembered something else, Cecily! Our vet had us spray Bactine, a first aid spray with something to numb the pain a little on India's incision after her patella sugery.

He said it kills some germs, and the dogs don't especially like how it tastes, so it really did help.

Something similar to it should be near the bandaids (plasters) at the drugstore (chemists). :flwr:

i am surprised that she wasn't given a cone collar to wear until the wound has healed to a point where licking won't interfere because the cone prevents them from being able to reach the wound. My vet was seriously concerned about that and made a point to try to get me to be concerned about it, she said on a couple of occasions, "i would hate to have to put him under anaesthesia again...." in order to correct a problem caused by the wound being reopened or infected by Zack. She was not casual about it, she insisted he wear the plastic collar. But the vet office person that fitted his collar chose a size that was too small so he was able to reach the wound anyway. :yikes

I did use the onesie on him, but it was not something i thought i could rely on to prevent him disturbing the wound if he had wanted to. I dont' think he disturbed it much, but since Tansie is doing a lot of licking, i would've expected the vet to prescribe one of those collars. But maybe i'm being too concerned about it--maybe my vet was just more concerned because she used self-dissolving stitches. When i was home, i didn't put the cone collar on him because i could supervise him. I put it on during the night and when i went to work.

I hope Tandie will heal up fast as I expect she will, sorry you have to have more worry. maybe your worry could be reduced if Tandie had a cone collar. zack didn't mind his at all, to my surprise.

judy said:

i am surprised that she wasn't given a cone collar to wear until the wound has healed to a point where licking won't interfere because the cone prevents them from being able to reach the wound. My vet was seriously concerned about that and made a point to try to get me to be concerned about it, she said on a couple of occasions, "i would hate to have to put him under anaesthesia again...." in order to correct a problem caused by the wound being reopened or infected by Zack. She was not casual about it, she insisted he wear the plastic collar. But the vet office person that fitted his collar chose a size that was too small so he was able to reach the wound anyway. :yikes

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Judy we were surprised she didn't get a cone collar to wear also. But I think Karlin mentioned in an earlier post that it's not as common with some vets. He really wasn't too concerned about her wound, and actually it's healing nicely.

The babygro is a godsent - thanks for that suggestion. She's been wearing it for 2 days now and the wound seems to be healing well. We've also been washing it with salty water and on the vets advice dabbed a little sudocream around the edges. It doesn't seem to be weeping much at all now and the skin isn't red or inflamed.

When we bring her back on Monday I'll ask about a chest x-ray and that heart medication. In the meantime we'll wait and see if there'll be a group cardio testing.

So thanks everyone for the advice! :thnku: Hopefully we'll have a happy outcome out of this one (touch wood, please God!)

Glad to hear she is doing so well. :flwr:

Oh that's great. Hope it continues well!

Sorry Cecily, I'm late jumping in .

I agree with Karlin - a heart murmur is very hard to detect and judge the grade for a vet, using a stethoscope.

I'd have an x-ray done, to see how much the heart has enlarged.

Is she panting excessively or having trouble breathing after exercise? If not, I would continue to exercise her. Is she coughing at all?

When Topsy came into rescue, the 1st vet (not the rescue's normal vet) said Topsy had a bad murmur and she had x-rays done. The 2nd vet said there isn't a murmur and the x-rays are fine too.

Good luck - you have my support, as my Cailean has quite advanced MVD.

great news cecily--it sounds like she is healing fine now. :flwr:

That is good news that she is doing better! Let us know how she is doing.