So, it looks like Daisy’s doing better after her second visit to the veterinarian.
Her painful story started Thursday afternoon. She kept licking her front right paw. In the past, she’s been quite good about chewing out the burrs and foxtails from her paws. In fact, she prefers to do it herself instead of letting her humans take a whack. She’s such an independent puppy.
On Friday, I canceled her grooming appointment and dropped by the Vet at Pet Smart. The vet’s office required a full canine exam. That means the medical assistant checked out her heart rate, ears, eyes and then he stuck a thermometer up her butt. Poor Daisy, she hates that part of the exam.
I told the Pet Smart doctor that this has happened before back in Topeka. He decided to shave-off the hair from her bottom paw and see if anything was stuck up there. He couldn’t find anything. He prescribed an ear ointment and topical spray for her pain. He claimed the ear ointment could be used on other stuff, like inflamed paws. OK. He said we needed to apply both meds, two times per day and each dosage separated by at least an hour.
No problem with my graveyard schedule and Mark driving an hour+ to Berkeley. Still we knew it was worth it. She’s our Daisy and we wanted her to get better.
Friday night, we did applied both meds to her paw and it looked like she enjoyed the taste of the drugs. I also think she just couldn’t help licking the painful paw. On Saturday morning, I applied the spray again to her paw while she was sleeping in bed with Mark. I think that woke her up.
When I got home from work, I noticed she gnawed off some hair from the FRONT side of her paw. Mark and I agreed things got worse for the puppy. We knew she was making it worse from doing what comes naturally. That’s when we decided to get a second opinion from another veterinarian.
We managed to squeeze ourselves into another animal hospital before it closed for the weekend. Daisy did not like sharing the waiting room with 3 curious dachshunds. Thankfully, the doctor was quite sweet with our puppy. I think she was relieved that her butt was spared another temperature reading. The doctor sedated Daisy and checked out her paw. He found a few tiny strands of foxtails stuck in her paw. He bandaged up her injured limb with purple bandages. I told her it matched her leash, but I think the last thing on her mind was fashion choices. The doctor gave her some puppy-safe penicillin and oral meds. I think these pills are similar to the ones we got from the Topeka vet and they worked better than the Pet Smart spray and ear ointment.
On Sunday morning, Daisy looked better. She kept staring up at me with her big brown eyes, begging me to take-off the purple bandage. I reminded her the doctor said she needed to keep the area covered until Tuesday. Then she sighed.
Soon, Daisy will be running around the yard, barking at our neighbors and enjoying our beautiful Cali weather.