Pup is very ill, please help.

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KyCountry
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Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:49 am

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone could possibly shed some light on my current situation. It's been extremely stressful and being that I'm a student and my family is struggling financially, it makes it even more difficult. My girl is a 1 year old GSP. She recently was spayed on Thursday and was going through normal recovery until Saturday. On Saturday, I noticed she wasn't herself at all. She would lay in one spot for 10-12 hours if you didn't force her up to go to bathroom. When taken outside, she would immediately pee and want back inside to lay down. She is extremely lethargic and has had a fever for a few days now. She is also very achy and will yelp when you try and pick her up. It looks to be more severe in her neck and when she bends to drink, it looks very painful and is done very slow. She will eat but not very often and she will still drink water) But her main issue right now is a fever.

On Saturday, I took her to an emergency vet who was anything but helpful. After a proposed $1,000 bill for blood work, x-rays and an over-night stay, I left with antibiotics for her upset stomach (she had diarrhea right after surgery) and something for a possible infection. On Monday, she was no better so I called the clinic that spayed her and they agreed to keep her overnight with an IV and see what they could do. They ruled out parvo and she has been on heartworm/flea/tick medication monthly. They also ruled out an infection from the surgery and believe it's something non-related to her spay. (her incision looks great and she is not hurting around the area) The clinic also switched her antibiotics to see if it would help. They said she looked a little better today (after keeping her overnight) but said they couldn't get her fever down, which is the main concern.

I'm taking her to another vet this afternoon to do blood work. I've already spent some money on her and really don't have much left to spend. Hopefully, one of the vets can help me out a bit. Is there anything I should be looking at or asking for? I'm running out of ideas. Is this meningitis? I'm very worried and don't know what I would do if I lost her.

Thanks.

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MNeric
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by MNeric » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:22 am

I have a two year old GSP that had some of the same symptoms, including lethargy, diarrhea, loss of appetite and muscle soreness/weakness. Turns out he has Addison's, where his adrenal glands don't regulate hormones correctly and the electrolyte levels are misbalanced. He had a few episodes before but only a couple days at a time, and around Fourth of July last year he was out of whack for close to a week. I let him out one morning and he could barely stand so I brought him in. An iv for fluids and stim test (they stimulated his adrenal glands to see how they would react) and he was diagnosed. He did not have neck soreness as your pup seems to, but if I were you I'd ask about Addison's.

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:44 am

Thanks, I will definitely ask about it. I did some reading and she surprisingly shared a lot of those symptoms. Would that cause a high fever? I haven't seen any signs like these in her before.

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ACooper
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Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by ACooper » Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:44 pm

Recently had a mastiff spayed, she caught MRSA Staff along with several other complications.

Why are you using a different vet than the one that spayed her?

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by RickB » Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:50 pm

There is something that my dog had. A form of meningitis. Makes the neck very painful. Arched back is often a telltale sign. I can't remember if a fever was attached. Google this to get a better handle on the symptoms to see if they match what you are seeing in your pup: Steroid Responsive Meningitis Arteritis. The painful neck made me think of this.

Rick

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RoostersMom
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by RoostersMom » Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:25 pm

RickB wrote:There is something that my dog had. A form of meningitis. Makes the neck very painful. Arched back is often a telltale sign. I can't remember if a fever was attached. Google this to get a better handle on the symptoms to see if they match what you are seeing in your pup: Steroid Responsive Meningitis Arteritis. The painful neck made me think of this.

Rick

Ditto on this - my sister's dog has meningitis. Very painful...dog wasn't himself and had a fever. Might be what you're experiencing. I call him "Hopper Stiffneck."

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by Sharon » Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:55 pm

I feel for you. Having a sick pup keeps you between a rock and a hard place if money is an issue. I've been in that boat and it is not fun. Thta's why they say that the price of a pup is the cheapest part of owning a dog. Try to avoid emergency clinics as they charge double the price of your regular vet. If you can pay , blood work will tell you a LOT about what the problem is. If the problem is not related to the spaying , talk to the breeder about ..........
" We are more than our gender, skin color, class, sexuality or age; we are unlimited potential, and can not be defined by one label." quote A. Bartlett

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by wems2371 » Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:02 pm

RoostersMom wrote:
RickB wrote:There is something that my dog had. A form of meningitis. Makes the neck very painful. Arched back is often a telltale sign. I can't remember if a fever was attached. Google this to get a better handle on the symptoms to see if they match what you are seeing in your pup: Steroid Responsive Meningitis Arteritis. The painful neck made me think of this.

Rick

Ditto on this - my sister's dog has meningitis. Very painful...dog wasn't himself and had a fever. Might be what you're experiencing. I call him "Hopper Stiffneck."
A friends dog had Steroid Responsive Meningitis a few years ago too. It took them a while to get a correct diagnosis, so that was pricey. Treatment was very inexpensive Prednisone pills. It did take the dog nearly a year before he was back to normal and they could discontinue the pills, but he does great now. It is sort of odd that she's ill days after the spay. Best of luck on this. It stinks when you don't know what's wrong with them...

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:14 pm

Thanks, guys. Still no diagnosis. She stayed at the clinic that spayed her and I also took her to another vet. They did blood work and checked for fluid in her abdomen but can see nothing. The vet said there was a possibility of blasto but as of now, I can't afford looking for it. I'm going to keep her on Baytril as well as the other antibiotics given. She felt great today as far was walking around was concerned--at least much better than the last few days. However, she still has a fever of 104. We are going to try and get the fever down tonight.

Definitely taking it's toll on the finances as well as the schoolwork that I'm having to miss. It's all worth it if she gets better though.

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by Chukar12 » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:28 pm

C'mon pup...pull through it

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by Cajun Casey » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:40 pm

Meningitis is an effect. The cause is what you need to find. Could be a TBI, even. Good luck. I hope she improves soon.
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by mountaindogs » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:16 pm

Chukar12 wrote:C'mon pup...pull through it
!!!! YES !!!!

my 2 cents is this.
1 following surgery... infection or internal bleeding are your risks of complications. Basic bloodwork will show infection and bleeding would be pale gums and a simple PCV would be cheap test. Your vet trip "should" have cought these though. Either of these would be my first thoughts that close out from surgery.
2 After that, she is not too old for PARVO so if her vaccinations were not current consider that. If they were she should be safe from that.
3 after that... there is a wide world of possibilities

Fluids and antibiotics rarely hurts and if you can't do anything else, KEEP FLUIDS IN! either IV or Sub-Q at the vets.

If she is home with you, you can do the following to help the vet diagnose and to keep track of her stability.
1) Take her temperature rectally at least 2x day. 101.5 is textbook normal for a dog. Higher than 104 and lower than 100 (some might say 99... but I am an hour from the vet... I don't wait) are ASAP get to the emergency vet signs. Anything outside of normal may indicate trouble and are vet worthy but I am talking about too high can cause brain damage and death (or DIC) and too low is indication that the body is shutting down and giving up.... often during anemia
2) Get a watch and place your hand on the left side of her chest feeling for the heart. Time the beats per minute and do this 2x day. watch for a dramatic increase or decrease. Unfortunatly normals are more varied so for the average person, just get a baseline and watch for trends.
3) Do the same for respirations, count per minute and watch for trends
4) CHECK GUM color. Unless you dogs gums are pigmented (dark brown or black normally) then gums should be close to the same color as healthy human gums. Press on the gum with your thumb and then count the seconds that it takes the white color to return to matching the surrounding color. Should be about 1 second. 3 or more is WAY slow.
Record these values even when normal so your vet can get a better picture of what's happening. they will LOVE you :wink: and it might help them catch something that leads them to a diagnosis. Now if you have her staying at the vet, then they of course will be doing this, and doing it more often.

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:31 pm

Mountain dogs, great advice. I will keep a log and a close watch on her tonight. Thanks to everyone else too. Every piece of input helps.

Just to clear things up, she has had blood work done to check for any abnormal levels (white blood cell and such) and they checked her abdomen/belly with their ultrasound type device to look for any possible infection from the surgery. She has also had a parvo test and EVERYTHING has been negative. The vet said that if it wasn't for a little cough and fever, she didn't look that sick. She was up today and started to do a little exploring/sniffing when taken to pee (first time since surgery) and I just got home with her tonight and she ate 1/4 pound of hamburger and some white rice. This was the most she has eaten since the surgery. She also had her first bowel movement since diarrhea on Friday night. It wasn't completely hard but it wasn't really diarrhea either. I take these as good sings?

She is on baytril, clavamax and an anti-diarrhea medicine.

If her fever persists, I will take her to my vet here (who hasn't seen her yet) and get another opinion.

Anyone else have any input? I'm feeling a bit better seeing her up and around and eating.

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by Cajun Casey » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:04 pm

Norovirus
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deseeker
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by deseeker » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:28 pm

Your profile doesn't say where you live---if you live in a state that has a good vet college(Kansas State, Iowa Stat, etc), alot of time they will have quite a few vets that are teaching that have seen just about everything in their teaching. Iowa State figured out what was wrong with my avatar dog when the local vets couldn't. Alot of time they have better access to equipment and tests than local vets do. Just giving you another option. I hope the dog comes out of it :!: :!:

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:01 pm

Thanks, I will look into it. I am back in forth between Central and Western Kentucky. I'm going to get her checked for blasto tomorrow. After reading things, I'm scared to death.

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:33 pm

Well, good news at the vet today. Her lungs showed no signs of anything wrong, which would indicate there's no blasto or it's extremely early. We sent off a urine sample so we will know about blasto/histo soon. The vet said it's early enough that it should be fine with proper meds.

Another possible explanation for the fever could be influenza/kennel cough and/or a UTI (which she showed signs of). A mixture of those two apparently could create an extremely high fever. The antibiotics she's currently on should treat for that but the vet said influenza could still last 3-4 weeks.

Feeling a lot better though.

Thanks again, everyone.

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by cjhills » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:48 pm

UTI would be my guess. we had that after spaying Cj

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by northUpland » Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:02 pm

I wish you the best! Seems like your GSP pup is a fighter for sure. I think being a bit run down from the spay and possible secondary infections aka flu/kc/uti might have your little girl just worn out. By her pic she seems to have some moxy! Sounds like the meds are in play so keep us posted. Best of luck partner!

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KyCountry
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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by KyCountry » Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:27 pm

Thanks for the kind words, north. She is a trooper for sure.

Cj, what kind of symptoms were you seeing? One of the things that is baffling me is her cough. She doesn't cough all the time but when she gets up to walk around she will cough a little.

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by cjhills » Wed Mar 20, 2013 9:06 pm

KyCountry wrote:Thanks for the kind words, north. She is a trooper for sure.

Cj, what kind of symptoms were you seeing? One of the things that is baffling me is her cough. She doesn't cough all the time but when she gets up to walk around she will cough a little.
Started with frequent urination on walks. Vet thought the stitch was irritating her bladder. right after they took out the stitches she started running a fever and was in severe pain. The timing was probably coincidence. My vets started her on Amoxicyllin. but she was a very sick dog and it wasn't strong enough. the pain was mostly in her back and shoulders but she would yelp if I touched her. I could put her on the bed and she wouldnt get off. The cough is a puzzle though. When they gave her a shot of antibiotics and got her on a good pain killer and Baytril she recovered very quickly. I spent three nights sitting up with her and thinking she wasn't going to see the sunrise. Good luck. I feel your pain. CJ

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Re: Pup is very ill, please help.

Post by cjhills » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:15 am

Wondering how this as went. Cj

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