Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Alayne and I were letting the dogs out at Widget’s House this morning, and as Travis — our boy with a fused jaw — headed to the door, I looked over and realized his stomach tube was hanging out.  Oh, no!  Now, this isn’t essential to his feeding anymore, since we learned early on he can slurp a liquid food, and he very much wants to eat that way.  But the stomach tube runs from outside his abdomen, through the abdominal wall and straight into his stomach, so this is not a piece of hardware you want to come loose.

He’s had this tube in for years, and after the first several months, he got used to it and pretty much left it alone.  We stopped having him wear his trademark shirts all the time because he stopped worrying the tube.  But something started him working on it overnight, and now it was hanging out.

I grabbed him and started to examine the tube and the hole in his side.  Clearly it was painful and he didn’t want me touching him there.  He yiked, or I should say, it would have been a yike if only he could open his mouth.  (Imagine yiking with your mouth closed.)

We brought him back to our house for a closer look.  By the time we got here, just a couple of minutes later, he was bleeding from the hole in his side.  Blood dripped all over the floor.  We bathed him, cleaned up the area, and then wrapped a big bandage around his abdomen.  Then we called our vets in Helena at Montana Veterinary Specialists.  A short while later Alayne hit the road with Travis.  We took this photo of me with Travis just before she left for Helena with him.

Dr. Jennifer Rockwell, the vet on emergency duty today, consulted with Dr. Britt Culver, our internal medicine specialist at the clinic who had inserted the tube in Travis originally.  The upshot:  We’ll just take the tube out entirely, since we aren’t using it anyway.  If we need to medicate Travis orally — which is why we had left it in — we’ll find a different way to get the medication in him.  Travis will stay at the clinic for the next few days while the hole in his side seals up and so they can monitor him.

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Meanwhile, our blind cat Turtle is back at the clinic, too.  She had major intestinal surgery a few weeks ago to remove tumors, which turned out to be sarcomas and not gastrointestinal lymphoma, as our vets first suspected.  Although the surgery was a success — the pathologist’s report said our vets had good margins around the removed tissue, meaning they got all the cancer in that area — she has never regained her weight, she continues to be dehyrdrated, and she just looks like she’s wasting away. 

Dr. Rockwell took X-rays today and it looks like she may have new intestinal tumors developing.  Our specialist, Britt Culver, will do an ultrasound tomorrow to see if they can confirm that.  If so, it means the cancer has already returned and the prognosis is pretty grim.  On Friday I noticed Turtle’s face was suddenly swollen around her left eye, and the lymph nodes underneath the left side of her jaw were swollen, too, so she has some kind of infection.  They have Turtle on IVs tonight and we’ll know more tomorrow after the ultrasound.

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Wait, there’s more!  On Saturday morning, while Alayne and I were bathing blind Brynn in her stall, I was stunned to find her rear legs were cold as ice … literally.  I mean, it felt like I was holding ice cubes in my hand.  Yet her temperature was normal.  I called our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, from the stall. 

Well, Bill had just received the lab report on the urine culture we took from Brynn on Thursday, when we did her blood work.  Brynn has a massive growth of e.coli bacteria in her urinary tract, which suggests she has pyelonephritis, a serious kidney infection.  One of the classic signs of pyelonephritis?  High spiking fevers.

Dang.

Bill’s first concern on hearing about Brynn’s cold legs was that she was beginning to go into endotoxemic shock.  This can happen from the proliferation of the bacteria in tissue.  So Bill had me check her heart rate and her capillary refill, both of which were in normal range.   That cast doubt on endotoxemia, as did her behavior that morning … eating, drinking, being her usual self. 

But we needed to treat her for the pyelonephritis right away, and that meant getting the right drug in her.  After a flurry of phone calls, Bill connected with an equine internal medicine specialist at Washington State University veterinary teaching hospital.  The specialist, Dr. Marta Gonzalez, confirmed Bill’s initial recommendation, which was enrofloxacin, but she upped the dosage.

We had enough enrofloxacin on hand at the ranch for one dose, but that was it.  Bill had one bottle left at his clinic, so I hopped in the truck and headed into Missoula to get the drug.

Meanwhile, Brynn’s legs returned to normal warmth — we have no idea what that was about! — and her fever has not returned.  But she needs aggressive treatment and further diagnostics, so I am leaving for WSU Monday morning to take her back to the teaching hospital.  (The photo was taken during her last visit to WSU.)

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That is how our weekend went!