Sooo Luna and I made a visit to the vet yesterday, don’t panic, she will be fine. It had been a while so I guess we were overdue. If you know me at all you know I try to be my animal’s vet as much as possible. I have always enjoyed the medical side of things, and am not really squeamish at all so I try and do what I can.
Warning: there may be some graphic words/descriptions to f ollow.. but it is for the sake of science and maybe helping others with some allergy problems.
For those who don’t want to read details… enjoy this photo of Luna staring at the horse chart at the vet office.
She is such a nut! She notices things like this, charts, bugs on walls, shadows, clock hands, spots, fur on the floor… Anything that was once moving or looks like it could move is game for her brain. Cracks me up.
DETAILS:
Sunday we took the dogs to the canal for a walk, where the dogs got covered in mud while running through many trees and occasionally eating deer poop. Needless to say they had fun, and Luna got a half bath when we returned. Then we all settled in to watch the superbowl… only to go to bed early as neither were our teams (though I was happy the Giants won). She woke me up in the middle of the night to let her out, which means she really needed to poop as she never fusses at night unless her stomach is upset. Soooo happy I actually heard it and woke up.
Monday I noticed that her lady parts looked swollen and slightly red (she had just come out of heat in early Jan so I knew it was not that)… I also noticed a bump about half a pea in size on her back. I checked it out but could not find any redness or bite area, it was simply a bump under the skin. I saw other smaller ones on her legs, the upside of having a tight coated dog, all i gotta do is smooth her hair and I can see small imperfections and feel thorns. Outside of the swelling and couple bumps everything was normal. I gave her a half dose of benadryl just to help her itchiness. But then she woke me up at night again to let her out, I knew something really was bugging her. But since her stools were simply just looser than usual I was not too alarmed.
Tuesday rolled around with much of the same. Her lady parts looked slightly better though, but then I noticed another problem. She had swelling in her ears, well within her ear flaps? Basically I pet her ears and noticed that it felt like there was a liquid filled area within it. Basically I found out later it is simply edema of the ear. I then checked her all over yet again, saw some of the same small bumps along her legs, but her belly, armpits and everything else were clear. I noticed a slight rash to her ear insides, but it did not necessarily relate to where the fluid was. The fluid had me concerned though as I had not ever seen this symptom from her before, despite the allergies we fought early on. Normally her belly would blow up with spots that turned into pimples of sorts and would take the hair with them when they left. I saw none of that time. Sooo in to the vet we went.
She was eating, drinking, and playing all like normal BTW.
They told me what I thought was probably already the case, it was some sort of allergic reaction. They checked her feet, ears, and skin for other allergy areas but found none. Normally when you see the allergies presented in the lady part area, or edema in the ears it is coupled with other allergy areas. The reason it would show up there in the first place is because the skin is more sensitive there. Luna yet again broke the rules by having edema of the ears but no other allergy signs. We were sent home with an antihistamine with a slight steroid in it as well.
By this afternoon her ears had finally gone back to normal. Last night she did not wake me up, and she has been napping most of the day. So I think the meds we were sent home with are working. Whoooo. I am glad it was nothing more serious and now I can add ear swelling to a semi-normal allergic reactions for my red girl. I just wish I knew what caused it, as we were totally allergy free last year. Hopefully this was just a freak reaction and won’t be repeated.
After all this napping I sure hope we get an actual snow to wear these guys out in. It has been snowing since noon but it just now started to stick to the grass. Here’s to an allergy free Vizsla romping in the snow with her lab brother!
Vizsla Inspiration 
I have heard of those symptoms from bug bites/bee stings. With the warm weather, is that possible?
Hope she is better.
A sting might have been possible, I did notice bugs are starting to come back out. She has been stung by bees before on her feet and all I ever saw from it was some redness and a touch of puffiness. I just found the swelling locations weird for a sting, I could not find any marks on her anywhere… but there is always the chance that I missed something. She is doing well today, and has already learned to recognize the pill bottle noise.
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How worrisome. I hate trying to figure out what causes an allergy, (Toby has allergies too). Glad she seems to be doing better.
Love the picture of her checking out the horse chart! Cute that she notices things like that.
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Glad you were temporarily able to get to the bottom of it. Allergies – such a mystery to figure out sometimes. I learned something – I did not know about edema in the ear flap!
Yeah, she seems to be back to normal. It was just so strange to see ear edema, glad I could teach you something 😉
Allergies are tough. It can be so hard to figure out the cause. I am glad she is feeling much better now and I hope she enjoyed her frolic in the snow! Dogs make winter a whole lot more bearable don’t they?
I hate allergies, Luna has for the most part grown out of them, but every once in a while gets into something. She is all back to normal now, and has been in the same mud twice over with no problem, so who knows what it was. Our snow has been pathetic this year, not even enough to play in, the most we have gotten at once was 2 inches. But I guess winter could be worse, and they did have fun in it when we go hike. How much have you all gotten?