calliecritturs
Posted : 12/9/2010 1:29:46 PM
Steph PLEASE PLEASE CALL ME. We went thru almost exactly the same thing with Muffin -- You've seen my diatribes before on forcing a vet to address the possibility of DEEP bacterial infections.
Vet's don't. So often they don't. They just keep handing you Otomax and "stuff" but you have to culture deep inside to find it.
Also -- cockers are notorious for NOT showing good thyroid results with classic "normal" thyroid tests. We had Billy's tested FOUR FRIGGING TIMES and it came back well within range ... a "bit" low but IN range.
Did bloodwork with Dr. Dodds? VERY LOW. And his has been stubborn to achieve the results we wanted with the supplement -- he's on a danged big dose of thyroid supplement but it's been like day and night with his skin and coat stuff.
Muffin went thru the bilateral ear ablations. BOTH ears. It made a GI-NORMOUS difference in his quality of life. There are FAR worse things than deafness. Being without pain, being able to concentrate and feel "happy" again?? Those are huge. But this is NOT a surgery you want your local vet to do.
I'll email you my phone -- call me cos I can tell you about the whole 9 yards. I know it seems the deck is completely stacked against you but that's not the case.
But yes -- you will likely be ultimately SO angry at your vet it's not funny. Because they **should** suggest a culture and sensitivity EARLY on when you see recurrent ear infections. AND after treatment is done there should be **another** one to make SURE all the bacteria is gone.
When Mufferino had his surgery -- he had e-coli, and strep and an "unknown bacteria" in the one ear. STREP????? in an **ear**???? Yep.
If you can put him on a NO-grain diet you'll help. e-coli is likely part of the equation somewhere and e-coli thrives in a grain-fed environment.
I know exactly how black this feels and sounds.
The other thing -- get yourself an ASL sign book and start teaching him elementary sign. I can, and will, send you the document I did of all the signs Muffin eventually learned. A dog who HAD hearing learns sign pretty danged easy. Because they KNOW the words your mouth is forming -- they KNOW what they mean.
Muffin ultimately "learned" about 70 signs -- and not just the "sign" -- once he figured out those signs were us "talking" to him -- THEN he wanted to know ALL the words. He didn't want to just know if he was going to "the vet". noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo -- HE wanted to know which one! so he knew "Dr. B" from "Dr. D" (the sign for "dr" plus the letter sign for the initial of their name).
The 7 year old deaf dog became our WATCH DOG. His nose would trump their ears EVERY time. If Muffin said something was "outside" the other two dogs would step back and sit down. Cos the "Nose" was NEVER wrong.
Take a deep breath. Like I said -- I've cried the RIVER full on this one. But never in my life have I had such an intense experience as we did with this and Muffin. This was where I learned all sorts of things about "how to pick a vet". *sigh*