- Joined
- Jan 11, 2005
- Messages
- 6,394
- Purraise
- 17
The other night the doggies were asleep on the lounge room floor, and all of a sudden Chester jumped up and yelped, and started limping around madly. We grabbed him and had a look at his leg, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong, he calmed down quickly and soon settled back to sleep.
Ten minutes later the exact same thing happened. This time we combed the blankets, lounge and floor and examined his leg minutely to see what was wrong - it was clear he had been bitten by something. We found an ant, squashed it, and he went happily back to sleep - with us watching like hawks to see if anything went wrong with his breathing etc - we were so paranoid!!
Well, he seemed fine but we noticed that for a day or so he was really licking at his front paw, and that Ruby was licking at it too. Clearly there was something wrong so we had a look, flexed his claws and the nail bed of one of his claws was swollen, and caked with pus etc. We hadn't noticed because he is black and it was only when we flexed the paw that the nail bed was exposed and we could see the infection.
We took him straight to the vet, who said he had dermatitis, but she also found a huge prickle and little stone that were embedded so deep into one of his paw pads that you couldn't see it at all unless you looked really closely. It took her ages to get it out and he was being such a good boy - but he was whimpering and trying to get his paw away from her. It was bruised and sore underneath, but because he'd made no sign of being in any pain we had no idea how long it had been there!
He had to have two injections (antibiotics and cortisone) and is now on a course of antibiotics for five days.
My poor little baby! We feel miserable that we didn't see it before now, but he was such a brave little boy.
Ten minutes later the exact same thing happened. This time we combed the blankets, lounge and floor and examined his leg minutely to see what was wrong - it was clear he had been bitten by something. We found an ant, squashed it, and he went happily back to sleep - with us watching like hawks to see if anything went wrong with his breathing etc - we were so paranoid!!
Well, he seemed fine but we noticed that for a day or so he was really licking at his front paw, and that Ruby was licking at it too. Clearly there was something wrong so we had a look, flexed his claws and the nail bed of one of his claws was swollen, and caked with pus etc. We hadn't noticed because he is black and it was only when we flexed the paw that the nail bed was exposed and we could see the infection.
We took him straight to the vet, who said he had dermatitis, but she also found a huge prickle and little stone that were embedded so deep into one of his paw pads that you couldn't see it at all unless you looked really closely. It took her ages to get it out and he was being such a good boy - but he was whimpering and trying to get his paw away from her. It was bruised and sore underneath, but because he'd made no sign of being in any pain we had no idea how long it had been there!
He had to have two injections (antibiotics and cortisone) and is now on a course of antibiotics for five days.
My poor little baby! We feel miserable that we didn't see it before now, but he was such a brave little boy.