I know it looks like Alayne and I are choking the daylights out of this poor dog, but honest, we’re not! This is Twist, the other half of the Oliver and Twist Dachshund duo who arrived just before last Christmas. I was in the isolation cottage about 8 a.m. this morning, giving deaf Snowball his heart and stomatitis medications, when Alayne walked up to the window and said, "We’ve got a problem with Twist."
She was in Kelly’s Cottage, letting the dogs out, and Twist would not come out of his crate. Usually he bolts right out and skitters across the floor to the door, lifting up his bad leg so it doesn’t slow him down. But not today … he wasn’t budging. Alayne reached in to pull him out, and that’s when she noticed his face was swollen.
My first thought at seeing the swelling was an abscess, but then I noticed his eye on the other side of his face was also puffy — and that would suggest more of an insect bite of some sort, or a reaction to something. We brought Twist into the house and I took several photos of his face — including the one above — to email to our vets in Helena, Brenda and Britt Culver. I wanted to see what they thought and whether this was something we could begin treating here, or whether he needed to go in for an exam. I called the clinic and asked the staff to alert them that the photos were on the way.
When you live 70 miles from your vet, you learn to appreciate the benefits of telemedicine! I take very high-resolution photos (we use lower-res versions for the blog) so Brenda and Britt can zoom in and see a lot of detail.
About 30 minutes later, Britt called after reviewing the photos. He, too, suspected an insect bite. He said a tooth root abscess would typically present with swelling farther up his face, and wouldn’t result in swelling around the other eye. So he asked what we had in stock, and I ran through our Rolling Dog Ranch Pharmacy inventory of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and steroids.
Britt had me start Twist on a twice-daily regimen of amoxicillin, prednisone, and injections of baytril. He said that if we were right about the cause, the swelling should start coming down pretty fast. And indeed it did … by noon Twist’s face was already looking better, and by this evening, it was almost normal.
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I just got back from the airport in Missoula tonight after picking up a little old blind-and-deaf girl from California. More on her tomorrow!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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