silhouettestable Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Anyone have any experience with throat injuries? Tomorrow morning I'm taking Lightning in to the vet to get checked out, but my guess is that he may have a sliver or some foreign body in his throat. This morning when I had the dogs all out running/playing in the fields he came up to me making an odd face, like he had something stuck in his mouth or had tasted something bad. He was not choking, and upon examination I could not find anything unusual, no cuts anywhere on his face or in his mouth, except a scratch on his nose (which he may have gotten when I let them out of the back yard from where they all then run and dash under the barbed wire fence to play in the fields). I kept an eye on him, the odd faces stopped and he seemed to be back to normal. With the gray, dismal day it's been here today my dogs have spent most of the day just lazing around the house, so I didn't notice anything further wrong with him. This evening however I noticed he seemed to be more subdued than usual, and he had developed stinky breath. He's usually a good eater but wouldn't touch his supper tonight, even with chicken and broth in it and he has some swelling on his neck in the area where the skin is kind of loose below the jaw. He's not drooling excessively but every now and then I wipe up a stringy bit of drool that is tinted just ever so slightly pink coloured. I've taken his temperature and he has a fever and with that and the suddenly stinky breath I'm thinking he's developing an abscess. I've given him a shot of penicillin to help until I can get him to the vet in the morning. We have no 24 hour clinic here so after hours it would be an emergency visit with whichever vet somewhere in our area is on call. Even if I call my clinic, the answering service would have whichever vet is on call get in touch with me and tell me which clinic to bring him to, and it may not even be a vet I necessarily want to use. Since his breathing is not laboured and he is not showing any signs of dehydration or shock I think it's safe to wait for office hours and go to my regular vet. He was fine first thing this morning, ate his breakfast and was playing as usual when I took them out for playtime. I'm thinking that maybe he picked up a stick or something else and got a piece slivered in there somewhere. If he does have a foreign body in his throat, I don't know how they would get it out without surgery, unless under anesthesia they can see further down into the throat than I've been able to. Has anyone had a similar type of surgery done and if so how long was the recovery? How long before the dog was able to work again and did it end up affecting their breathing and performance? I'm hoping Lightning won't have to miss this season of sledding and that there will be no long-term effects, he's my great gee/haw leader and he keeps the whole team moving well when passing other teams at races. He's also my daughter's superstar kid & mutt dog, they clean up and win almost all the classes they enter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCjetta Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 I've seen dogs with similar things. If they can't find anything by looking way down the mouth/throat once the dog is under anesthetic, they may open up where the lump is to look for a foreign body...no guarantee's they're actually find it though depending on how small it is. If it looks infected/abscessed, they may put a drain in it and put him on antibiotics for a couple weeks, and maybe metacam or something as an anti-inflammatory. I would guess something like that to take 2-3 weeks to clear up. There are lymph nodes and salivary glands on each side of the jaw just behind where the lower jaw ends...its possible one of those could be what you're feeling, or it could be an abscess. I wonder if he could have stabbed himself with a stick or something and made a puncture wound somewhere in the back of his mouth (my dog has done this 3 times allthough she was lucky and no pieces of stick came off in her mouth). Hopefully its something easy to fix so he can be back to normal in a few weeks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbc1963 Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 My sister's dog had a very similar problem. One Sunday, Snowy wouldn't eat - and believe it or not, that clearly signified an emergency health issue, for Snowy. My sister and I drove her to the e-vet, who examined her, checked her throat, found nothing, and thought maybe she had a cold and the equivalent of a "sore throat," so sent her home with pain relievers. Well, the next morning, she woke up with a big lump on the outside of her lower neck. When my BIL went to touch it, it burst, releasing a great deal of infection. So, a second trip to the e-vet, antibiotics and a drain, and she was OK. (Took about a week or two to recover fully!) Seems as though the dog got something in her throat - a stick? a burr? - and it was infected and painful. The infection actually worked its way out through the skin. UGH. Good luck. It's really frustrating when you can't figure out what's wrong, but know something is! Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silhouettestable Posted November 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Went to the vet and she couldn't find anything specific either. She said I had two options, antibiotics and monitor it over the weekend, or anesthetize him and do a more thorough exam. We went with the antibiotics and monitoring, as he seems to be feeling a bit better this morning than last night. His fever is down some and he showed some interest in food, though doesn't have his usual appetite yet. He usually gobbles up his food whether it's plain dry kibble or has extras in it. This time of year when they're in training I'm usually feeding them something extra (meat, gravy, broth etc.) and last night when he wouldn't eat his bowl had roasted chicken and broth added to his kibble and he wasn't even interested. This morning I guess he was hungry enough that he tried a few pieces of plain kibble, but I didn't give him much in case he had to go under anesthesia at the vet. After the appointment I made him a very soupy mix of some kibble, chicken and broth and he slowly ate most of it when I hand fed it to him. I had an appointment booked for tomorrow morning anyhow to take some of the others in for vaccinations, so he's going to go back then too for a recheck. He's now on pain meds and stronger antibiotics than the penicillin I gave him. If that isn't enough and he gets worse over the weekend he'll go back Monday morning to get put out for a more thorough exam or surgery if necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue R Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 I hope everything turns out well for him and for you. It's so easy to worry about them, especially since they can't tell us just what the problem is. Very best wishes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silhouettestable Posted November 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 Change of plan. A few hours after returning from the vet, I noticed that the swelling in the throat area was no worse, maybe even a bit better but around the corner of his mouth was now swollen too. I was wondering, could it be a tooth abscess forming or did both the vet and I miss something? I decided to take another look myself to see if I could find anything. Laid him down on his side, head flat on the floor and opened his mouth. His tongue fell over towards the floor and BINGO! There was something embedded under it. Examining him while in an upright position wasn't moving his tongue out of the way and neither the vet or I had tried to do that since the problem seemed to be the throat. So I called the vet, they said bring him back right away and leave him to be sedated and have it extracted. This is what they pulled out! The whole thing was buried under his tongue with just the tip showing. Now wonder the poor guy wasn't feeling well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbc1963 Posted November 21, 2009 Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 Oh, NO! That's horrific! Poor baby! I'm glad they got it, and I bet he's feeling so very much better now. How the heck does something like that get embedded under a tongue!? Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnLloydJones Posted November 21, 2009 Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 The whole thing was buried under his tongue with just the tip showing. Now wonder the poor guy wasn't feeling well. Ouch, that hurts just thinking about it. It's another reminder that dogs can suppress levels of pain that far exceed what we can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet_ceana Posted November 21, 2009 Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 Wow. I'm glad you found it. I can't even imagine how painful that must have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silhouettestable Posted November 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 He is so fast and intense in everything he does, I'm guessing he decided to pick up a stick and dove for it, probably impaling himself in a smaller bit. Either that or maybe he got clobbered in the face by Flurry's big stick that he was carrying around when they were playing. We weren't playing with sticks (no throwing and fetching) but about half of our property is heavily treed and there's no stopping them from picking stuff up when I take them out of the back yard to have a run through the fields. Flurry always carries something in his mouth when he runs around, sometimes a ball or toy, sometimes a bone and sometimes a big stick. By about 11pm-midnight last night he was feeling much better, and this morning he was back to his usual self. All swelling is gone, he gobbled up his breakfast and is very smiley and playful again. He'll be on antibiotics for a while but other than that he's fine. What a relief. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MicheleS. Posted November 21, 2009 Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 OMG!! Poor guy. I'm glad everything turned out okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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