ZigsBro
Well-known member
Hi everyone!
We have a 8 year old Cavalier King Charles who has just this year started having a rather large array of health issues. He has never ever had any health troubles through his life. Never ever. Literately no issues what so ever up until this year.
It all started out with him being a little under the weather. A little high temprature and some very saw ears. We took him to the vet and they said they would prescribe him some painkillers (Loxicom I think) and some antibiotic drops for his ears. We got back home and gave him the meds and there were no issues what so ever until about 12AM. I was still up and he was out of his cage lying underneath a table. He all of a sudden would keep scratching his ears. Quite excessively too. It got more and more frequent to a point where he couldnt go 2 seconds without scratching his one ear. It was so sensitive that you couldnt even lift his ear to take a look inside.
He kept scratching his ears and scratching and scratching and he barked and growled at nothing in frustration. He then eventually gradually calmed down over the corse of about 20 minutes.
He was absolutely fine after this and he went to bed and slept as normal... Really rather strange. Then we took him to the vets again to make sure everything was ok and they said it was probably to do with the fact his ear was so sensitive for some reason and that to let the antibios do their stuff. They also found a very very mild heart murmur (they said it was at a grade that was so low that it was barely even noticeable). They also gave him another check up on this trip and they discovered his prostate was inflamed. We pointed this out to them because his penis had this green discharge on it. Quite a lot of it infact that it would rub off onto his legs. They said that the anti bios they prescribed would take care of it. Sure enough, a week went by and you could finally lift his ear to take a look. But you hard a hard time being able to touch them still. So we took him for a follow up appointment and they said that they anti bios had worked and everything including his prostate was fine.
After this everything was sort of ok. A couple weeks later we took him a walk up a small hill and he suddenly stoped walking and sat and literately chewed his front paws really violently. We waited about 10 seconds and he was fine to walk again. This has happened about 2 times since that.
He also does this rather unusual thing around the house sometimes in which he trys to scratch his ear while walking. He pulls this funny face and walks really weird with one of his back legs failing to reach his ears. This to me combined with some of the other issues sounds like syringomyelia but the vet said that older dogs cant get it if they didnt have any issues in their youth which he didnt.
Another thing is that his paw licking has gotten far far more excessive than usual. He usually licks his paws obsessively but we just tell him to stop and he does. But recently in the past 2 weeks (I think anyway) his paw licking has escalated to pretty much all the time. If hes awake, hes doing it. Both his paws will be wet the chances are..
He still had bad allergy problems with his dry snorting when getting excited. Its almost as if he cant breath when he does it and each episode lasts about 10 to about 20 seconds. Because of this issue we took him AGAIN and asked whats going on. They said it was to do with his throat because of the pollen count this summer in Britain which to be fair he did have bad hay fever with. So they prescribed him some tablets or something to fix this issue supposedly. So since we havent been back and although this issue is less frequent it is still happening now and again albeit a lot less.
And finally... Last but not least which is what caused me to make this thread is what happened about 20 minutes ago. He was sitting on my Moms lap and he all of a sudden (after being completely fine) the left side of his face went all weird and he lifted his left paw to his face as if to try and scratch it. It looked like it was out of his control and he did it in an irritated fashion. It lasted about 8 seconds and then he walked off all odd. His front left leg was limping all the way to the kitchen where he sat down and stayed. We then tried to encourage him to walk so we could see if the problem was still present. We couldnt get him to walk to us so we got a small chunk of ham out the fridge (his favorite) and he got up and ran straight toward us like he would usually. So we took took this piece of ham into the living room to test him. Sure enough, he ran straight into the living room and literately leaped for it which showed his agility. (ofcorse, we didnt give it him, we made him sit and everything :wink: )
He is now lying in his usual spot underneath the table and is fast asleep just fine. Now we are left wondering..... Whats happening to him. Could it be syringomyelia? Can it occur in later life? It seems to be apparent that it could be.
I want to say that our cav is not overweight or anything and has always been at the right weight so much so that everyone who meets him thinks he is a puppy.
Whats going on?
Thanks everyone
We have a 8 year old Cavalier King Charles who has just this year started having a rather large array of health issues. He has never ever had any health troubles through his life. Never ever. Literately no issues what so ever up until this year.
It all started out with him being a little under the weather. A little high temprature and some very saw ears. We took him to the vet and they said they would prescribe him some painkillers (Loxicom I think) and some antibiotic drops for his ears. We got back home and gave him the meds and there were no issues what so ever until about 12AM. I was still up and he was out of his cage lying underneath a table. He all of a sudden would keep scratching his ears. Quite excessively too. It got more and more frequent to a point where he couldnt go 2 seconds without scratching his one ear. It was so sensitive that you couldnt even lift his ear to take a look inside.
He kept scratching his ears and scratching and scratching and he barked and growled at nothing in frustration. He then eventually gradually calmed down over the corse of about 20 minutes.
He was absolutely fine after this and he went to bed and slept as normal... Really rather strange. Then we took him to the vets again to make sure everything was ok and they said it was probably to do with the fact his ear was so sensitive for some reason and that to let the antibios do their stuff. They also found a very very mild heart murmur (they said it was at a grade that was so low that it was barely even noticeable). They also gave him another check up on this trip and they discovered his prostate was inflamed. We pointed this out to them because his penis had this green discharge on it. Quite a lot of it infact that it would rub off onto his legs. They said that the anti bios they prescribed would take care of it. Sure enough, a week went by and you could finally lift his ear to take a look. But you hard a hard time being able to touch them still. So we took him for a follow up appointment and they said that they anti bios had worked and everything including his prostate was fine.
After this everything was sort of ok. A couple weeks later we took him a walk up a small hill and he suddenly stoped walking and sat and literately chewed his front paws really violently. We waited about 10 seconds and he was fine to walk again. This has happened about 2 times since that.
He also does this rather unusual thing around the house sometimes in which he trys to scratch his ear while walking. He pulls this funny face and walks really weird with one of his back legs failing to reach his ears. This to me combined with some of the other issues sounds like syringomyelia but the vet said that older dogs cant get it if they didnt have any issues in their youth which he didnt.
Another thing is that his paw licking has gotten far far more excessive than usual. He usually licks his paws obsessively but we just tell him to stop and he does. But recently in the past 2 weeks (I think anyway) his paw licking has escalated to pretty much all the time. If hes awake, hes doing it. Both his paws will be wet the chances are..
He still had bad allergy problems with his dry snorting when getting excited. Its almost as if he cant breath when he does it and each episode lasts about 10 to about 20 seconds. Because of this issue we took him AGAIN and asked whats going on. They said it was to do with his throat because of the pollen count this summer in Britain which to be fair he did have bad hay fever with. So they prescribed him some tablets or something to fix this issue supposedly. So since we havent been back and although this issue is less frequent it is still happening now and again albeit a lot less.
And finally... Last but not least which is what caused me to make this thread is what happened about 20 minutes ago. He was sitting on my Moms lap and he all of a sudden (after being completely fine) the left side of his face went all weird and he lifted his left paw to his face as if to try and scratch it. It looked like it was out of his control and he did it in an irritated fashion. It lasted about 8 seconds and then he walked off all odd. His front left leg was limping all the way to the kitchen where he sat down and stayed. We then tried to encourage him to walk so we could see if the problem was still present. We couldnt get him to walk to us so we got a small chunk of ham out the fridge (his favorite) and he got up and ran straight toward us like he would usually. So we took took this piece of ham into the living room to test him. Sure enough, he ran straight into the living room and literately leaped for it which showed his agility. (ofcorse, we didnt give it him, we made him sit and everything :wink: )
He is now lying in his usual spot underneath the table and is fast asleep just fine. Now we are left wondering..... Whats happening to him. Could it be syringomyelia? Can it occur in later life? It seems to be apparent that it could be.
I want to say that our cav is not overweight or anything and has always been at the right weight so much so that everyone who meets him thinks he is a puppy.
Whats going on?
Thanks everyone
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