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Bacterial Infections

I lost one of my older dogs back in late March to a very rare illness, Heterobilharzia Americana…it took a long while for him to progressively get worse…I treated him for the usual preventative maintenance and nothing helped…so the vet sent off some blood samples to A&M and that is when we found out what he had…the vet called it right from what she saw when doing her usual type blood work at her clinic…

A month after the old dog passed my best dog got very sick in a very short time…below is the short story on what happened…

We were hunting one of the usual spots we have hunted for many years…the dogs struck a big boar hog and caught up to him and he was looking for cover to defend itself…he ran off into a canal that never runs dry…the dogs and the hog stirred up the water pretty good and the water turns black and also gives off a bad smell…Diesel got a few small cuts but nothing to really worry about…I noticed that he was in pain so I leashed him up…we loaded up the dogs and on the way back the dogs winded and we turned loose a few dogs and they caught another and Diesel was wanting to go but I didn’t unleash him…
I got him home and washed him really well and treated him as I’ve done for many years with all my dogs as needed …he quit eating and was running a fever…amoxicillin and Dex didn’t work…I went to work Monday morning and called the vet at 8AM and they were booked…found another vet and went home to get Diesel and to take him to the vet but it was too late…I knew I had never seen this before but was too late in saving my dog…

Two weeks later an exact type hunt…same size hog on a canal close to the previous canal with same water conditions…my hunting buddy told me I should of called him because he had some very expensive antibiotics that he swears by to have given to Diesel…

Well Turbo, Diesels littermate brother got a small nick on the side of the rib cage on the second hunt…he started getting sick even though I didn’t waste any time treating him…I noticed he was getting worse quickly…I called my buddy and he got me some of the high dollar antibiotic but it didn’t work…he was running a fever in the infected area…I lanced it and flushed it at least 4 times that day and I took the dog to the vet…

I asked to identify what the infection was because I knew I had never seen this…so the vet sent a sample to A&M and the analysis came back that he had two bacterial infections…one was streptococcus which the vet said was common but the second bacteria was not that common to get in a puncture wound…the second infection named Fusobacterium…the treatment used was an antibiotic named Clavamox…about 430 mg twice a day for two weeks…the vet spent a good while flushing the infection, and the smell was pretty rank…no doubt he would of died by the following day…I was hoping the vet would sell me a bottle of Clavamox but she refused…I am thinking Baytril will work but not 100 percent sure…Baytril needs a vet prescription as well…

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Training dogs is not so much about quantity, it's more about timing, and the right situations...After that it's up to the dog....A hunting dog is born...