Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / June 2009

Hi!  :-)

A very good friend of ours several years ago bought a Rhodesian
Ridgeback.  It turned out that the puppy had several problems which
became aparent over the years.  One of the worst was that his jaw did
not form quite right.  She got past that though with some surgury.  Now
she has a more serious problem happening and she can not figure it out -
nor can the vets she has taken the dog to (both standard and holistic).

Here are the symptoms:

1. Cysts appear as small nodules and begin to grow.
2. 99% of these have been soft and she has had numerous ones removed.
3. Unfortunately, she is running out of cash to do this and, of course,
the worst one appeared on her dog's rear foot.
4. This cyst has grown to be the length of the dog's back foot and the
initial scab has sloughed off leaving a foot with very large pock marks
that weep puss, clear fluid, and sometimes blood.
5. When I first examined the foot I had thought that the dog had put the
 puncture wounds on itself due to the size of this thing.  But upon
closer examination the openings are not in the shape of teeth marks.
Nor does the dog even attempt to bite at the sore.  Lick it - yes, bite
- no.
6. The dog does not cry out in pain if you touch the wound.  Nor does he
cry out when touching any of the other cysts.
7. The cyst goes from about the ankle all the way down to the toes on
the foot.  The skin is discolored slightly.  (I am suspecting some kind
of blood poisoning is going on.)

What she has done so far:

1. Taken him to four different vets.  Three are standard vets and one is
holistic.  All of the vets have applied antibiotics (ie: pills) to the
problem (except the holistic one which gave herbal pills to be given to
the dog).
2. All of the vets (two are skin specialists) have no idea what this
stuff is and have said so.
3. In order to do a biopsy of it - they are asking $1,500.00.  Which, of
course, our friend can ill afford.  (It has already cost her over
$600.00 just to see these people and buy the antibiotics.)
4. After examining the foot up close via the naked eye, I had to wonder
if maybe the dog got into something like a wasp's nest or fire ants
because of the large number of openings on the foot.
5. Our friend lives in her dad's house because she is not very rich at
all and her dad's house has a large wood pile on one side of the fence.
 Her dad collects all sorts of junk which, when he was younger, he
would fix and then sell.  Being in his 80's now though - he just keeps
collecting junk and not doing anything with it.  So my suspicion is that
the dog (who is a big goof) probably stepped on/into something and this
is the result.
6. The wound has been thoroughly cleaned with alcohol, antibiotic
creams, and even hydrogen peroxide.  The tissue is clean though reddish
from the swelling.  The inner areas of the open wounds are dark red from
(as far as I can tell) being able to see the deeper veins.

My thoughts to help this dog are:

1. He probably needs more antibiotics.
2. I'm wondering if he needs an anti-infamitory drug to bring down the
swelling on the leg.  I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
3. Does anyone know of any insect bite that can cause swelling of this
sort?  I've ruled out Brown Recluse because the flesh is not dying off
and there are no tell-tale white rings.  But a Black Widow, scorpion
sting, and other poisonous insects might be the culprits as well as
Ground Wasps (which would account for the multiple holes in the skin).

Our friend is pretty much beside herself about this.  I just wish she
had of brought this to my attention earlier.  The dog has been suffering
with this for about a week (or maybe two).

We are also considering putting the dog to sleep as, although it does
not appear to be in pain - we do not want it to suffer.

Please be constructive with your suggestions.  If you want to see
pictures of the foot I can arrange to take them and send them to you via
e-mail.  I will try to get as detailed pictures as I can (including some
of the other cysts on his body).  Basically, we are trying to figure
this out so we can present our findings to one of the skin specialists
who may then know what to do to help Quinn (the dog).

Thank you in advance for any help which you may be able to provide.  :-)
 Hopefully - it isn't too late to help remedy this problem and save the
dog's life.