Monday, March 5, 2012

What A Week!

Last week was  medical education week at our house. We have never heard of "Happy Tail", have you? Happy Tail occurs when a dog with a long wagging tail beats it on everything causing trauma to the tail. The tail tip is usually the place of injury. Some tail tips split and others are severely bruised which can lead to tail tip necrosis if not given a chance to heal. Tail tip necrosis results in removing the injured part of the tail which of course starts the cycle all over again. Most of the time the tail is completely docked to remedy the condition.

Betsy injured her tail and we just happened to notice blood on her tail tip. The tip of her tail is bruised and hopefully will heal with taking an antibiotic treatment. There is no way to keep her from wagging that tail!  I thought her tail tip had turned black however our vet thinks it is just bruised. We are praying that 10 days (2/day) of Cephalexin 500 MG will help keep the bacteria away.


Betsy is a happy girl and constantly wags her tail.


The next medical education was on canine pedal furunculosis - a deep tissue pyoderma. Phoebe has some sort of boil lesions on her feet that will not heal. Some short haired breeds are predisposed to this condition. Canine pedal furunculosis manifests as a single to multiple lesions firm to fluctuant on the feet usually in the interdigital areas. This is usually caused by a persistent autoimmune disorder. Our vet and I have decided to initially treat with 3 weeks of Semplicef, biopsy, and go from there. If this is an actual autoimmune response then treatment will be life long. Our goal will be to get it under control and then decide on a preventative maintnenance.
The lesion is not a paw pad - it is a huge fiber cystic hard ball between the paw pads. This is on the bottom of the front foot.


This one is on the back foot. The other back foot has a smaller one.

Phoebe will take this antibiotic for 3 weeks and then a decision will be made on other treatment options.  
The good news is that prognosis is good to fair.  Lifelong medical therapy may be needed to maintain remission.  I always say it could be worse.

Have a great Monday!

7 comments:

  1. We hope Betsy and Pheobe both feel better. We met a Labrador who had sprained his tail from too much wagging!

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  2. Oh no. Well I had never heard of either of those either. I hope you both get better quick. Im surpised our Norbert never got happy tail, he sure can wag
    Urban Hounds

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  3. Oh dear! I guess you did have a medical educational week! I sure hope Betsy and Phoebe heal up and need no further treatment for their conditions! Good Luck!

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  4. Yikes, not a good week for the pups this week. Poor Phoebe's paws look so sore - hope the meds will help her get better.

    Our human sister's lab Gypsy had happy tail. It was much worse looking than Betsy's. After many attempts to get it to heal properly and several outbreaks of very bloody mishaps, poor Gypsy had to have her tail docked. She doesn't seem to notice the difference at all now, and no more bloody messes.

    Hope Betsy's heals well. You caught it early so it should.

    Woos - Phantom, Thunder, Ciara, and Lightning

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  5. Thanks for the medical education--one can never know too much about these things. I hope Phoebe and Betsy heal up perfectly. Lamar has a boil-like cyst between his paw pads, I just noticed--I'll have to get a better look at it. And Fozzie wags his tail like a fiend, but the only injuries sustained so far are to whoever is standing in the way...usually me :)

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  6. Oh my, we're sending Sibe vibes to your pack right now! We've heard of the happy tail thing before - but not the paw thingy. Looks sore - hope everypup is feeling better soon!

    jack & moo

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  7. Oh my...so many pills.... I hope they are felling better soon...
    Kisses
    Iris

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