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Old November 19th, 2009, 10:26 PM
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Gail P Gail P is offline
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Throat injuries?

Anyone have any experience with throat injuries? Tomorrow morning I'm taking Lightning in to the vet to get checked out, but my guess is that he may have a sliver or some foreign body in his throat. This morning when I had the dogs all out running/playing in the fields he came up to me making an odd face, like he had something stuck in his mouth or had tasted something bad. He was not choking, and upon examination I could not find anything unusual, no cuts anywhere on his face or in his mouth, except a scratch on his nose (which he may have gotten when I let them out of the back yard from where they all then run and dash under the barbed wire fence to play in the fields). I kept an eye on him, the odd faces stopped and he seemed to be back to normal. With the gray, dismal day it's been here today my dogs have spent most of the day just lazing around the house, so I didn't notice anything further wrong with him. This evening however I noticed he seemed to be more subdued than usual, and he had developed stinky breath. He's usually a good eater but wouldn't touch his supper tonight, even with chicken and broth in it and he has some swelling on his neck in the area where the skin is kind of loose below the jaw. He's not drooling excessively but every now and then I wipe up a stringy bit of drool that is tinted just ever so slightly pink coloured. I've taken his temperature and he has a fever and with that and the suddenly stinky breath I'm guessing he is developing an abscess. I've given him a shot of penicillin to help until I can get him to the vet in the morning. We have no 24 hour clinic here so after hours it would be an emergency visit with whichever vet somewhere in our area is on call. The vets take turns who is on call so even if I call my clinic the answering service would just have whichever vet is on call get in touch with me and tell me which clinic to take him to, and it may not even be a vet I would necessarily want to use. Since his breathing is not laboured and he is not showing any signs of dehydration or shock I think it's safe to wait for office hours and go to my regular vet. He was fine first thing this morning, ate his breakfast and was playing as usual when I took them out for playtime. I'm thinking that maybe he picked up a stick or something else and got a piece slivered in there somewhere. If he does have a foreign body in his throat, I don't know how they would get it out without surgery, unless under anesthesia they can see further down into the throat than I've been able to. Has anyone had a similar type of surgery done and if so how long was the recovery? Did it end up affecting their breathing and performance? Lightning is the superstar command leader on my team and he helps me train the younger dogs. In races he takes the team through any necessary turns without any glitches and keeps them moving well for nice clean passes with the other teams out there on the trails. I really hope he doesn't end up having to sit out this season, and that this doesn't have any long-term effects. :sad:
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Old November 19th, 2009, 11:37 PM
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luckypenny luckypenny is offline
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I'm so sorry to read what's happening with Lightning. I don't have anything to offer in terms of advice as we've never experienced this. I just wanted to send and for Lightening vet visit. Whatever it is, I hope he recovers quickly.
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Old November 20th, 2009, 12:01 AM
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hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
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Did you check the roof of his mouth, Gail? Sometimes our nudniks get sticks caught crosswise up there... That wouldn't cause the swelling on his neck, though

I hope it's easily fixed, whatever is wrong with Lightning

for a quick recovery!
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Old November 20th, 2009, 01:18 AM
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Hopefully your vet has an endoscope or can borrow one to check deeper into Lightnings' mouth/throat easily

Sending along speedy healing for Lightning
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Old November 20th, 2009, 11:11 AM
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hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
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Please keep us posted, Gail!

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Old November 20th, 2009, 11:58 AM
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I did check the roof of his mouth, and all over inside and in the cheeks (he's such a good boy letting me look around in there when he's not feeling well ) I couldn't see anything anywhere, no foreign objects, cuts or scrapes.

Went to the vet and she couldn't find anything specific either. She said I had two options, antibiotics and monitor it over the weekend, or anesthetize him and do a more thorough exam. We went with the antibiotics and monitoring, as he seems to be feeling a bit better this morning than last night. His fever is down some and he showed some interest in food, though doesn't have his usual appetite yet. He usually gobbles up his food whether it's plain dry kibble or has extras in it. This time of year when they're in training I'm usually feeding them something extra (meat, gravy, broth etc.) and last night when he wouldn't eat, his bowl had roasted chicken and broth added to his kibble and he wasn't even interested. This morning I guess he was hungry enough that he tried a few pieces of plain kibble, but I didn't give him much in case he had to go under anesthesia at the vet. After the appointment I made him a very soupy mix of some kibble, chicken and broth and he slowly ate most of it when I hand fed it to him.

I had an appointment booked for tomorrow morning anyhow to take some of the others in for vaccinations, so he's going to go back then too for a recheck. He's now on pain meds and stronger antibiotics than the penicillin I gave him. If that isn't enough and he gets worse over the weekend he'll go back Monday morning to get put out for a more thorough exam or surgery if necessary. Hopefully this does the trick
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