Dog Ear Infection and the Dreaded Cone

A few weeks ago, Abigail underwent surgery for an ear hematoma. As a result, she wore a collar for the last few weeks to keep her from scratching her ears and causing infection. Yesterday, she finally got the collar off around 3 o’clock. We were so happy for her because you could tell she hated it.

After arriving back home, my wife had to run some errands, so she let Abigail out on the back porch to enjoy the nice afternoon. (This is one of Abigail’s favorite spots.)

Around two hours later, we got home and checked up on Abigail.  We were looking forward to seeing her tail wagging because she was happy to have the collar off. Instead, we found her underneath a chair with her back leg, which had been fine when she was at the vet earlier, bright red and a great deal of fur missing. Over the course of 2 hours, she had chewed on her leg so much it was bleeding in spots. After having seen dog hot spots before, we called the vet and made an emergency appointment.

A Trip to the  Vet

We were extremely lucky that our vet had one appointment available before  closing in 2 hours, but it required that I get there in 10 minutes.  I rushed out the door and made it in time. After taking one look at the dog he had seen just two hours before, he was amazed. He said the hot spots had probably been itching her for a while, but with the collar on, she could not get to them. He believes the inflammation was probably caused by a flea bite to which Abigail is highly allergic. He gave her a shot of steroids and told us to put the collar back on until the hot spots get better.

In my next article, I’ll give an update on our battle with fleas and what we’re using to fight them.

I’m happy to report that Abigail is currently laying down in my office sleeping while I type this post. After some additional antihistimine, she finally seems to be getting some relief.

[ad#GA-336-EndOfArt]