Well, about three days after we ran out of the Clavamox, Hunter's nail started to ooze blood. At first just bright red. But then some other goo. Toe swelled a little. Last night he came to me with his foot up and it was bleeding like it had been freshly quicked. So I had made an appointment yesterday for this morning about the digestive issues he had yesterday after a marrow bone Monday (was that a confusing sentence, or what?!) The tummy's fine today, but I kept the appointment to have the toe looked at. Doc put him on another round of antibiotics, Cephalexin this time. I told him that we had a lot of loose stool with the other antibiotic and asked if there was something we could use that he knows works, and he "gave" us this stuff called FortiFlora, by Purina Veterinary Diets. Said it works wonders for dogs with even worse antibiotic reaction that what I described. So... we'll give that a try. All that loose stool for two weeks straight managed to make him drop a couple pounds, and he started trying to beat me to his own poo, which he hadn't done in a few months, so that may mean he wasn't getting the nutrients out the first time through... eew!

Poor Hunter just can't catch a break with health stuff this year so far!!

Ouch! I'm sorry I hate when they aren't feeling well. At least you had the vet appointment already set up so you could get him in quickly, I'm sure that will help him start healing quicker too. Hopefully things will fully heal this time around, and his poos will return to normal.

The dog that I bought back had some toe infections going on from chronic licking (that's a whole nother story with the woman keeping him constantly crated so that his rear was weak from NO exercise so the poor dog is now OCD!!)

My vet put him on Clavamox, Niacinamide, and another med (I will try to find out the name) that made the Clavamox reach his peripheral extremities much better. He had to have a couple of courses of the Clavamox but he is all cleared up now. The infection from the licking had gone untreated for a very long time (we verified this with the previous owner's vet) and was pretty bad.

Ask your vet about this treatment.

CherrystoneWeims wrote:Ask your vet about this treatment.

If the current course doesn't work, I will most definitely ask him! Thanks for the info.

Hunter's OCD thing when I first brought him home after years of crating 22/7 was running in circles - had to check out everything now, how 'bout now, might have changed so I better check again... I'm glad he wasn't an obsessive licker! Oy!

Can you wrap it? I wonder if all the snow irritated it again... poor boy

I shovel the dog run (easier to scoop!), so he's not running around in snow. I suspect that he caught a bit while he was nesting in his blanket and bed. Maybe an odd little edge in the cauterized end, kind of like a hangnail, gets caught and rips off. Or... it could just be that the little bit of infection left just needed a place to be relieved and the end of the nail was the closest route. But I really think it was from his obsessive nesting. So cute... and yet so annoying when you're trying to fall asleep at night!!

Doc didn't do anything about sealing it back up, just said to keep doing what I'm doing, which is cleaning it with an alcohol prep pad and then packing it with Kwik Stop to limit the bleeding and oozing, and to help keep dirt out of it. He said it would take time to develop a real end on it. Here's hoping its sooner than later. It has to totally suck for him to go through, effectively, getting quicked daily! And yet, he never whimpers or flinches. He was even licking the Doc's face while he was squeezing that poor little toe today. A year and few months ago, the guy would have lost his face for that!

Sorry to hear about Hunter's toe! Hope it heals quickly..
On a side note, we have used fortiflora with Cosmo and it did indeed work wonders! hope that's the case with hunter...

poor boy! Will the nail ever grow back?
He HAS come a long way under your care...licking the vet's face is just one mere example!

weimamama wrote:poor boy! Will the nail ever grow back?
He HAS come a long way under your care...licking the vet's face is just one mere example!

Yup, the nail will grow back. It's already starting to - it's almost out to the edge of the top of the pad! I'm starting to get used to seeing it NOT there, though! And only having three nails to dremel on that foot... not so bad!

weimSARbest wrote:And only having three nails to dremel on that foot... not so bad!

not bad indeed! we clip, not dremel... June would eat our faces off Blue just lays there and appreciated the pet-icure; sometimes we double team him and each take a side...done twice as fast! June still has to have "uncle Joey" at the petstore do hers after she's good and tired from school...