Baxter Update

Baxter came downstairs and ate a little boiled chicken, in small pieces. He looks better, his tail is curled. He has that Akita tail so it's pretty easy to read when he's not happy. I've learned tail uncurled is a big watch out sign for lots of stuff.

So I'll keep an eye on him tomorrow and we'll take it from there. Baxter is the dog that gets these random dire things, like the toenail bed infection *gets on soapbox*

If you ever notice your dog licking it's paw and see that the area where our cuticle would be, is swollen, get to the Vet right away. ER vet if it's night time. Like us, that cuticle is the wall that keeps infection out. I caught Baxter's right away and it was scary, the vet said it was unlikely to get better and needed heavy duty meds, soaking and at one point an injection in the site (that was awful).

Usually what happens is the nail is removed, if not caught in time, the toe, then the leg and if it gets into to the bone the dog goes septic and it kills the dog due to massive organ failure. I know, from an infected nail bed.

We were blessed in that because I got him in within a few hours, (it went from fine to swollen really fast) and he got heavy duty antibiotics ($$$) and was willing to let me soak his foot, plus the injection, he recovered. He had to go back every two days to insure it was healing. The vet was surprised and we were all very relieved.

There are a lot of dog ailments that I am comfortable treating to a degree (we feed raw and vaccinate at a minimum and avoid antibiotics unless really needed) and if I hadn't remembered the random trivia from hair school (no joke) I might have waited to see with this as well. We big dog owners know all about and fear bloat more than anything, I never would have expected something like this. Baxter is the first dog Dr. Schrader saw that did recover with all his pieces and he's been a vet for a long time.

So, add to bloat and eye injury, any swelling where the claw goes into the toe and do NOT delay.

*off soapbox*

Anyway, I'm always a bit more concerned about Baxter because while he is 'just weird' as my vet says, he worries me more than the others. But, so far so good. Thank you for the kind words and thoughts.