Medical/injury scares

Well, if Devon and Ian wanted to scare me to death and remind me how much I love them, they did it this week!

Devon
On two different times last week while working on the contact equipment, Devon did an odd skip step on her rear right leg. She never showed any signs of limping or any other problem. However, this was exactly how her iliopsoas pull showed itself, and it was on the opposite leg as that pull so it couldn’t be a relapse of that injury. I did talk with Dr. Bonnie about it on Saturday, but we both pushed it off as her just adjusting her stride.

Well, on Sunday we were training with Steve and Janet. Devon went out for a long mark in cover and ran into some sharp stick or weed and jumped straight up in the air 3 feet. After this, she skipped a step on that leg about every 4-9 steps. In addition on Monday morning, I heard her drag her toes on that leg. UGH! So I made an appointment for the next day in the morning with my regular vet, my uncle, because they all needed titers/vaccines. I also made an appointment with Dr. Bonnie just for Devon in the afternoon.

Tuesday morning we ran Devon up and down the side of my uncle’s building, and none of us could see any problems. My uncle palpated and rotated and he couldn’t find a thing wrong. So off to Dr. Bonnie’s! The first thing Devon did was put her paws on Dr. Bonnie’s chest so she could say hello. Dr. Bonnie used this to test her balance on her rear legs and it was fine.

She started on Devon’s front end, and her left (opposite) shoulder was locked up. Hummmm, compensation issues. Then Dr. Bonnie started down her back. From about the middle of Devon’s back through her pelvis she was completely locked up with no movement. It went back easily and Devon felt much better!

Dr. Bonnie recommended a variety of exercises to get her strength and dexterity back into her rear legs, including cavalettis, ladder work, backing up, pivoting on her front and rear legs, and woods walking. We’re going to continue her training in field and tracking, while building her rear up without jumping. I may even put agility off until next spring. I will likely do some contact work, but not until after she gets this JH in September! I don’t want her injured and miss yet another opportunity for her JH.

So, Devon scared me, but she’s fine. She was actually the good news of the day.

Ian
Ian was just a great guy during his shots. He hung in there but was eager to get back to his crate. My plan was to drop all three boys at my parent’s house before taking Devon to Dr. Bonnie’s in the afternoon. I stopped to get gas, and I heard something odd in the back of the van. I looked back and Ian was rubbing his face on his crate bed. He looked up at me and his face was swollen! He was having an allergic reaction!

I immediately started digging in the dog bag for benedryl and called my uncle’s office. They put him on and since Ian wasn’t showing any signs of breathing distress, he recommended 100 mg of benedryl. This is why I carry all sorts of things in my dog bag and a jar of peanut butter in the van! Right there at the truck stop, Ian got 4 benedryl. His face looked like a Newfoundland!

I dropped Reece back at mom and dad’s but kept Ian, Connor and Devon with me. We got to Dr. Bonnie’s with no problem and the swelling had gone down. However, while we were in the vet’s office, Ian threw up what was in his stomach. At least the benedryl had time to act. When we got home, my cleaning person was still at the house, so the dogs got to spend a couple more hours in the van in the garage. I checked on them frequently to monitor the temperature and to make sure they were ok.

When I got Ian out of the van, the side of his face looked funny. His right eyeball had swollen and the white of the eye was outside the eyelid (gross!!!). More benedryl, which Ian kept down for a grant total of 30 minutes. After consulting with several people and my uncle again, we decided he was past any danger. The benedryl worked overnight (and he threw up three more times), so his face was back to normal by Wednesday morning, but my carpet will never be the same! Much to his delight, he’s eating chicken, rice and cottage cheese to get his stomach calmed down.

In talking with everyone, the conclusion is he reacted to his lepto vaccine. Apparently this is not all that unusual. From what I’ve gathered there are two different reactions, the swelling like Ian had and a muscle locking that other friends’ dogs have had. This second reaction has been described as total body soreness, not wanting to be touched or move and teeth chattering. Needless to say, Ian won’t be getting this vaccine in the future!