Rusty acting strange after having his neck shaved for a Blood Test

Now the reason for how he is behaving is probably because his neck his agitating him after he had a Blood Test as the vet had to shave his neck and it looks as though the vet may have just slightly caught him with it. Anyway the story is Rusty had his booster on monday and his health check, Rusty also has a Heart Murmur so the vet checked that and said it was quite bad and took a blood test to check for Diabetes, Kidney problems etc etc and they came back Negative (Thank God). Anyway since then he has been acting very strange by walking around with his head low and keep rubbing it against blankets and the carpet, so my wife is constantly bathing it for him and trying to make it better. Can someone just reassure me it is just from his neck being shaved he is behaving like this I also think the fact he struggled so much when they were shaving and the vet nicked him could have something to do with it.

This happened to Gus twice after being vaccinated in his neck. I had to call the vet, he examined him and prescribed anti-inflams.


I think it would be a good idea to give your vet a call.

Thanks for the advice Pippa will give the vet a call right away. Hate seeing him feeling all sorry for himself hes gone through enough as it is

Let us know how he gets on.

Well I phoned the Vets and they said to pop him up and the vet said he had never known a dog to be shaking before after being shaved but put it down to him scratching/ rubbing his neck. So he has given us some tablets and some cream and has said it should go down within 3 days. So fingers crossed thats all it is. The vet cant find anything other than his heart murmur the matter with him.

When my Cavalier had to get a blood test her neck was driving her mad for about a week afterwards, it was itchy! She stopped after a bit but she was obviously irritated by it. The spikey hair growing back was making her neck itchy

Wht you are discribing sound different to what my little one was doing thought, hope it clear up for you :xfngr:

It might be clipper rash - that's not unusual after they have had their neck shaved for blood to be taken. It can be very irritating.

One of my boys was very sore with it - unfortunately he was allergic to teh cream he was given which made things worse but normally it clears up pretty quickly.

Hope Rusty is better soon.

I am thinking that the hair growing back could make them very itchy. Is it common practice to have to shave Cav's to get blood? Our retriever had to blood taken several times in his last year and they never shaved him. Mindy had a blood test last year before her dental and she wasn't shaved either. That sounds pretty unpleasant.

I think I also read somewhere on this forum that due to the possibility of SM, blood should not be taken from the neck area. Hope he feels better - probably very itchy as others have said from the hair growing back.