Great Dane post spay advice

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Great Dane post spay advice

Posted : 9/13/2012 7:29:19 PM

I have a 1 year 7ms old Great Dane who I rescued from a back yard breeder. As you might know you can't spay this breed unroll they around 14 months. Due to poor nutrition in the beginning of her life she had a lot of GI problems and I was working with holistic vet to strengthen her immune system. I decided to go through one more heat. It started mid July and never stopped. One vet diagnosed her with pyometra. I could not believe it because the dog looked and acted very healthy. I took her to another clinic and they did diagnostic ultrasound and her uterus look perfect. Unfortunately, they did not look at anything else. They took a sample of her discharge and said that she had a vaginal infection. I was hoping that after a course of antibiotics she would be fine. I waited a week after we finished meds but she was still dripping. The next possibility was that she had a cystic ovary. I thought that since she really never got into estrus, it made sense. The vet wanted to have a complete ultrasound, test hormon levels and a full blood panel. All together it would run $700. I just lost my income and at the moment don't even have medical insurance. I thought that it would make more sense to do the spay and see what's there. I knew that it's more risk while the dog is in heat but we were on the third month and it did not seem to go away. I suggested to do some hormonal therapy, so the cyst can pop but several vets said that it barely works. And again, we did not know for sure if she had a cyst. So, on Tuesday we had a surgery and it did not go very well. After an hour of surgery they could not stop blood oozing and it took another half an hour and help of a second surgeon. I had to leave the dog in ICU over the night. Instead of quoted $700 I ended up with $1700. Sophia seems to be doing ok: she eats, pees and poops. But once in a while small amounts of urine come out on the bed. She does not like it and gets off. I've constantly changing the bedding. The vet said that she might have urinary infection. She didnt have it prior to surgery. Any suggestions, thoughts, experiences?

rwbeagles

Posted : 9/14/2012 8:40:04 AM

I would not really freak about the leaking UNTIL she is fully healed and ALL bruising external and more importantly internal has subsided. The rougher a surgery is, the longer brusing and swelling can affect things.

There is ALWAYS some brusing of the surround tissues and structures seems like for most abdominal surgeries, and this can take a week or two to be resolved even in a routine spay. I imagine one done where infection or pre existing issues might be present would extend this time even longer.

Spay incontinence IS an issue, and it may be that your girl has this...but she could also just have a lot of th above going on which could lessen or resolve completely in a month.

For now I have heard good things about the herb parsely being used to help mild incontinence so if she doesn't mind you can chop some of the fresh up and put it into her food and see how that goes. It certainly will not hurt her and tends to soothe the GI tract sometimes...at least in people.

I would definitely still do the bloodwork and in particular a Thyroid panel sent off to one of the bigger labs to see what if anything is up there. That is something that runs around $80-100 and is very much worth ruling out IMO.

ETA: Did your vet put her on any antibiotics post surgery? I should think a urinary tract infection would be less likely under those circumstances.