Canine (General)

[gailarden]

1st of all we are a 5013c sanctuary, mostly for unadoptable dogs & cats with chronic diseases.
Chico the chow was not one of those & we considered him one of our personal dogs tho we found him on the hiway about 4 yrs ago. He looked like a pure bred chow. not grown yet. He had heart worms, we had that treated & had him neutered. we last got his shots & heartworm test in July.
He was bathed & shaved at the groomer. Then about 3 days ago he was acting sluggish. He was a big slow moving dog, walked like champion. Looked like a small lion. The way he acted I thought maybe he had hurt a leg or something. He was still eating til day before yesterday when he threw up what looked like dinner from nite before. We were gone yesterday afternoon. Came home to start the feeding....we have, had 46 dogs now. All on heartworm medication, all had their shots. Chico was very sluggish. I looked him over, his eyes were kinda squinted, a little mucas in eyes. He threw up clear liquid again. 2nd time he threw up. he was always in the house, not outside dog so I basically saw tht he was not acting sick like with ear infection, something like that. I called the vet. He called me back & said he was out of town. I told him Chico had a DRY ICE COLD MOUTH, I had to unclamp his teeth, gave him water with eye dropper, then chicken broth, asked vet about an antibiotic I had for another dog. He said ok. I did that. One time last night he went to waterbowl. didnt eat. vet said he would be back in town today. Our vet bills run about 1,000 to 1,500. a month with no discounts. so we are not people who dont take care of them. we have a chow whos 17 & has had cancer 3 times. it has spred to her lungs & she is going to die from it but the vet said she would died in 2005. they live a long time with us. we are diligent, caring people who love every one of em. anyway.....
At 4am my husband got up & said Chico was asleep, but he was alive.
At about 7:30 am he was dead.
2 yrs ago we had a blue healer, young & she was on thyroid medication. SHE HAD AN ICE COLD MOUTH & IT WAS DRY. SHE WAS EVEN YOUNGER THAN CHICO. WE GOT HER TOTHE VET & SHE DIED BEFORE THEY COULD LOOK AT HER. THEY SAID SHE WAS DEHYDRATED & HAD SOME KIND OF INFECTION.
MY QUESTION: Has anyone out there seen these symptoms before & has some idea what couldve killed these dogs. Our vet is very good. hes like a general practioner. we are in the country and he treats a lot of cattle. has no specialty. theres no other vet out here that you can call on weekends or at midnite. He has met us many times at the clinic.
there is an emergency clinic about 50 miles from us which we have never used. I am going crazy thinking of what could have happened. what killed Chico.
please write if you know anything ....
thank you, gail arden; Lake country animal sanctuary

[Daveyo]

Hi I am Daveyo. Get an autopsy done on the chow. I suspect somethings but cannot say for now until I read the autopsy report. You can still have it done.

Let me know


Daveyo

[gailarden]

Hi, you replied to my questions about spinal cord stroke. Wendy my little daschi girl is still paralyized but shes not dragging hind legs completely, there is some movement & I hope she will recover & walk in time.
Chico had such vague symptoms. Lethargic for few days, threw up friday then on saturday threw up again. His mouth was dry & ice cold just like Muffey when she died 2 yrs ago.
I was hoping someone knew of something that caused dehydration and apparently an infection of some sort and then killed him very quickly. We have a rotteweiller who has had liver problems & it was only thru her exam when we got her -I think her blood work-otherwise we wouldve never known she had it. She took medication for a month & tests now are negative.
We had Chico cremated so theres no chance of autopsy now.
thanks for the suggestion. If another one comes up with these symptoms & the vets not available we will take them to the emergency clinic we found. If we have another death I would ask for an autopsy. Didnt think of it at the time.
gailarden

[Daveyo]

Ok hmmmm, let me do a bit of research for you regarding your mysterious case. Only 2 come to mind at the immediate moment but I think there is another one or two behind this.

One is a different strain of Parvo

Two is a hepatitis infection which itself is contagious and does spread. Your Rot was the small tip off here.

Three there is a new strain of Parvo on the loose but that one kills quickly and dehydrates the animals very fast causing vomiting and being Lethargic as well. No animal has survived past 18 hours with this type of strain that I know of.


Do you by chance happen to have the full CBC of your deceased dog???

I would like to see it if possible.

Daveyo

[gailarden]

Chico had his shots in August, 2008. He had heartworm test. Rabies, Parvo/distemper & Rabies plus a stool sample for parasites. he was negative on Heartworm, had it when we found him but was treated & put on Heartguard. We recently have started changing to ....cant think of name of med...heartworm med that kills whip worms.
No, I dont have blood work test. dont know if he ever had that.
I am thinking that the symptoms for the strain of Parvo fit both Chico and Muffey the blue healer.
Please tell me if the regular shots dont protect from that. Is there another shot for that particular strain of Parvo? or is it always fatal? Parvo isnt contagious, is it? The border collie we got when the people left her & the rotteweiller across the road & moved had Parvo. We had been feeding them & I saw border collie lying on ground. not moving. went & picked her up, took her to vet & he saved her. we took both dogs. Only one had the parvo tho they were together.
Thank you for answering.
How are your daschunds doing? they are my favorite breed of dog. we have Wendy(paralyized), Little Boy, Sophie & Bebe (both full size) & Bambi a daschund mix. Bambi was given to the pound to be euthanized by her former owners because she was a "chewer". she grew out of that in her old age.
at first we had chewed legs on all our chairs. Her life is worth more than a chewed up chair.
gailarden

[Daveyo]

Most parvo vaccines do protect from the parvo disease. However recently Parvo has been mutating and there is one called Parvo F which kills the animal in about 12 hours. So I don't this this applies to your situation.

Nice to know you like Dachshunds. Got more than I can handle now.

Daveyo

[gailarden]

Chico was not feeling well for longer than that. About 2mos prior to his death he had started licking one of his front paws. He licked it raw. A sore about the size of a quarter. probably not related to his death. I am thinking maybe something like liver disease or kidney failure. Would either of those cause dehydration? about 2 yrs ago a blue healer, young like Chico died within hours of our discovering she was dehydrated, not feeling well. She was on meds for thyroid. asking our vet is like talking to yourself. It couldnt be anything contagious. we have too many dogs that were close to Chico and wouldve died by now, or gotten sick. We are going thru kennel cough right now. upper respitory infection which doesnt last very long.
We found one of the cats dead this morning. He was an old persian. we had just gotten his shots & he had a check up at the board certified cat doctor we use. He was bathed, shaved, he was find last night.
Thats the hard part about saving them. when one dies. its very hard.
If you can think of anything else other than Parvo, I'd like to know.
thank you. gailarden

[Daveyo]

As of the dogs having kennel cough, separate the infected dogs as soon as you can. It spreads and can get out of control. Baytril of 50mg a day for about 5 days does the trick.

As of your Chico, hmmm, licking till it gets raw tells me it had a skin condition of some kind of parasite that was imbedded inside the skin. Nothing to do with dehydration.

Parvo causes rapid dehydration and you can tell quickly if you lift the skin on the back and it sticks, get some fluids to the animal quickly. One of them is Glucose which is good and this animal has to be treated very fast for the disease. Takes about 3 days to cure them.

I have noticed a lot of people talking thyroid here and most of the time dogs don't have thyroid problems because it will be obvious on the CBC test itself.

The cat was old and fortunately it died in your hands and not some place else.

Be mindful of hepatitis. You have a situation that it can happen since you take stray dogs in. Remember to quarantine any stray pickup until you are certain they have no sickness that can pass on to the others in your kennel.

Hope this helps you

Daveyo