summer bummer

Thursday, August 2

Postings have been scarce due to illness (mine), schedule (mine), another herding trial for Sabrina and Leo, and computer issues (mine).

Following Milo's dental surgery, it seemed as though he was doing well.  He's been eating and has seemed alert and happy.  The swelling went down on his muzzle and he's been seeking out chew sticks (which I gently removed as he has a number of stitches in his mouth).    I guess we sometimes forget how stoic those collies can be!

Yesterday Leo started sniffing at Milo's mouth.  I opened up each side of his mouth to examine the canine area where the stitches are.  The right side was nice and pink.  The left side was white and had a slight odor. I e-mailed the vet (as it was about 7 pm when we began this exploration) to inquire as to whether this might be normal.   Milo's last day of antibiotics was today and I suspected infection since the white are was on the side which was abscessed under the canine.

I brought Milo to work with me today because I had a feeling that we were going to wind up at the vet.  Ultimately I was able to take photos today and send them to the vet.  He called to ask me to poke at the white area to see what the consistency was like.  Suffice to say that we ended up going to the vet at the end of the day.

Dr. Ryan Speltz probed the suspect canine tooth area with a Q tip and began digging out food and pus-like ooze.  Yuck!  He assured me that because the nerve was gone that Milo was not in pain, but Milo was not terribly interested in cooperating in the procedure none the less.

The area is infected and called a sinus fistula.  This means a different stronger antibiotic for 10 days and Milo will need to have the area - the hole - stitched, but not until we get rid of the infection.

Here are the photos:

Right canine socket.  Nice and pink!

Left canine socket - area below the thumb is the problem site.

Canine socket following the probe to clear the area of food and pus.