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Sick Dog: Perhaps from pining over a girl?
Dark_Side
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Not really, but here's the facts.
Two weeks ago while out of town I had my dog at a kennel. When he came home he was completely fine, but a few days later fell very very sick. I got home from work last tuesday night to find a dog that was completely different from the one I know. He vomited twice on our first walk, and was very lethargic on the next two before I went to bed. He also had horrible diarrhea, and an intense shaking, most likely from a fever which lasted for several days. After a tense night, I got him into the vet in the morning and after an examination and some blood tests, they sent him home with amoxicillin and a strict diet of special hypo-allergenic food. (He has very bad food allergies)
Fast forward to almost a week later and he is still shaking and sleeping a lot, though my ear thermometer says no fever. He has improved markedly since he was first sick, but the shaking is tripping me out. I've called the kennel and they didn't have any other dogs get sick, and I regulate his diet rigidly so I don't think it was that either. I did buy some different treats, but they were supposedly organic and had been giving them to him for two days before he actually got sick, as well as some rawhide bones from a different manufacture, again several days before he got sick. He has a small red lump on his stomach, but the vet didn't think it had anything to do with his being sick.
I'm a bit at my wits end, I don't entirely trust my vet (They try to upsell me on stuff everytime I go there), and am wary of spending a whole bunch more money to keep having tests run that don't really tell me what's wrong. (His blood work was a wild mix of positives and negatives) The shaking is the worst, I just hate to see him so miserable. I'm wondering if he may in fact be reacting to the amoxicillin, or maybe the pill poppers I use to give him his pills. I'm swapping out the pill poppers tonight, but I doubt it will make any difference. He is a short haired pit mix, so he may be cold, but the shaking doens't seem to be caused by cold. I guess my question is if anybody has had a dog with similar problems?
Also, this is the bro-dog in question:
Two weeks ago while out of town I had my dog at a kennel. When he came home he was completely fine, but a few days later fell very very sick. I got home from work last tuesday night to find a dog that was completely different from the one I know. He vomited twice on our first walk, and was very lethargic on the next two before I went to bed. He also had horrible diarrhea, and an intense shaking, most likely from a fever which lasted for several days. After a tense night, I got him into the vet in the morning and after an examination and some blood tests, they sent him home with amoxicillin and a strict diet of special hypo-allergenic food. (He has very bad food allergies)
Fast forward to almost a week later and he is still shaking and sleeping a lot, though my ear thermometer says no fever. He has improved markedly since he was first sick, but the shaking is tripping me out. I've called the kennel and they didn't have any other dogs get sick, and I regulate his diet rigidly so I don't think it was that either. I did buy some different treats, but they were supposedly organic and had been giving them to him for two days before he actually got sick, as well as some rawhide bones from a different manufacture, again several days before he got sick. He has a small red lump on his stomach, but the vet didn't think it had anything to do with his being sick.
I'm a bit at my wits end, I don't entirely trust my vet (They try to upsell me on stuff everytime I go there), and am wary of spending a whole bunch more money to keep having tests run that don't really tell me what's wrong. (His blood work was a wild mix of positives and negatives) The shaking is the worst, I just hate to see him so miserable. I'm wondering if he may in fact be reacting to the amoxicillin, or maybe the pill poppers I use to give him his pills. I'm swapping out the pill poppers tonight, but I doubt it will make any difference. He is a short haired pit mix, so he may be cold, but the shaking doens't seem to be caused by cold. I guess my question is if anybody has had a dog with similar problems?
Also, this is the bro-dog in question:
Dark_Side on
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Ideally this would come from the vet who you've been taking him these past years as that vet will know the dogs temperament, and have the animal's history and all the results of the batteries of tests that have been performed. If you really cannot trust your vet and have to find a new one, then the new one will probably have to run a bunch of tests to try to figure out what's wrong. So it's not going to save you any money to switch vets, but it's important that you have a trusting relationship with your vet.
Is he eating or taking fluids? This is important, if he's hypoglycemic or dehydrated this can manifest all kinds of problems that will interfere in the diagnosis. How's his gums look (pink, pale, yellow)? Is he drooling a lot and are there other behavioral issues other than lethargy/seizures? Normal dog temp is 100-102, above or below that usually means there's problems. You may need to take the temp rectally as ear thermometers aren't that great.
Yeah, he could be having reactions to the medication, but presumably the medication is to treat the underlying issue and you shouldn't take him off the medication unless the vet says that's OK.
If you need another vector to get the medication in him, I'd try hotdogs, or a chunk of cooked chicken (no spices). The pill poppers I've seen are full of all kinds of additives such that I think a chunk of hotdog's probably healthier.
Note: I'm not calling your dog dumb for eating a sock either.
I'm not sure I'll ever be free of that mental image. On the plus side, you may have just cured my rampant panty fetish, so that's something.
Adult dogs have a better chance of recovering from parvo than puppies.
It could be something else, because parvo is hardly the only thing to cause vomiting/diarrhea in dogs, but it sprung to mind because it does tend to crop up in multi-dog situations like kennels and it's highly contaigious.
Edit: Nevermind, I see you already called the kennel.
He's up to date on all of his shots, so it shouldn't be parvo or kennel cough, etc.
She detected a heart murmur this time and gave me two expensive options to try and figure out what's going on. Either a sonogram? for his heart, or really expensive antibiotics on a week by week basis, she told me the economical option is the pills for now, so that's what we're going to try. She suspects he may have an infection in his blood stream that's collecting on his heart valves...or something like that. I've already spent over 500 bucks on this dog in 2 weeks, so I'm pretty tapped moneywise, I really hope he gets better.
our pit mix went through cancer last year, and the insurance saved us thousands... and it's only ~$20/month for our policy
Too true!!
Maybe get a second opinion?
Probably, if he doesn't get better I'll have to make a decision, for now I'm going to stick with what the vet and I agreed upon and just hope something magical happens. I will say though that he was remarkably better tonight, so that's somewhat promising.
That is a very handsome dog, and I hope he feels better soon.
I mentioned I was completely out of money due to how expensive all these visits were getting, and she changed her tune a little bit, even knocked off some of the standard visit fee, and for once nobody came in and tried to sell me oral flea medication, so it must have had some effect.