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View Full Version : What's wrong with my dog?


mimieliza
10-26-2005, 01:41 PM
My Australian Shepherd, Miles, started having scaly-looking redness on the tops of his hind feet about three weeks ago. I never saw him licking it, he didn't limp, and it didn't seem to bother him. After about a week, when it hadn't cleared up, I took him to the vet. The vet thought it might be a type of mange, but took a skin sample to test. It wasn't mange, so he took a biopsy and put Miles on an antibiotic. After two days, I took Miles back, and his feet seemed way better. The vet decided not to send in the biopsy (to save me some $$$, since it seemed to be on the mend).

Fast forward another week - Miles' foot is bright red, and he's licking it constantly. He has a stitch in it from the biopsy, which comes out on Saturday, and I thought that might be irritating him, but his foot looks terrible. I'm worried that the vet is going to do another biopsy, which will mean more stitches, more irritation and more licking. $200, a round of antibiotics and two weeks later, and his foot is worse than ever. :(

Oh, and now he's losing hair around his left eye, as well, It's not red, but there's definite hair loss.

Anyone deal with anything like this? What worked? Thanks!

kemorr
10-26-2005, 04:24 PM
I would call your vet. There is a good liklihood that the vet still has that original biopsy in a jar of formalin in his office and can now send it out to the laboratory to find out what the problem is - thus saving Miles another biopsy procedure.

Sometimes it is really hard to find mange on a skin scrape. Demodectic mange is generally pretty easy to find but Sarcoptic mange is generally quite difficult. The biopsy would help in diagnosing either type of mange.

It could also be due to allergies, a fungal infection, a recurrence of the bacterial infection, an auto-immune process or even cancer. As the initial treatment strategy didn't seem to work and as it seems to be spreading, i would ask your vet to send the biopsy out and maybe also do some additional tests (eg fungal cultures, skin prep looking for bacteria, yeast etc).

Goodluck!