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Well, it’s been a continued roller coaster ride since my last Maggie post. On Friday I received a call from the surgeon that the initial pathology reports were looking more like cancer than an injury. We would know more after they performed some special stains to help sort out what type of cells were present, and whether it was a response to injury or a cancerous process. That meant another weekend of waiting, because the results would not be available until Monday, late in the day, or Tuesday.
When my phone hadn’t rang by Tuesday at 2 pm I knew something was up and called back down to Iowa State. I was told that the pathologist on the case was out of town and we wouldn’t have results for another week. This was completely unacceptable to me, so I got on the horn to the pathology department, and as luck would have it one of the pathologists I hold in the highest regard was in the process of sorting out the slides even before my call. He called me back within 30 minutes and after talking him through the history and comparing the information from my end with what he was seeing, he was very confident that all of the abnormalities were associated with an injury and the repair process. The cells definitely had the characteristics of a cancerous tumor (basically tumors grow rapidly, as does damaged/repairing tissue), which explained the slowness of the diagnostic process. Two weeks after the initial event, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Maggie continues to improve dramatically, though we are still facing two more weeks of forced rest. After that we’ll start the physical therapy process, and I currently have the over-ambitious goal of one last end of the season hunt. I have two posts that I’ll try to share in the next week, a detailed account of the events of the last week, and a recounting of the unbelievable number of injuries and near-death experiences this dog has had in her seven short years.
This season has been one bad dream. I live my entire year for fall, and I’ve yet to have anything go right. Wednesday I attempted to get out to salvage the vacation that was ruined by the blizzard that hit South Dakota. After getting some office work done in the morning I loaded the three dogs up in the truck and headed for some public shooting areas.
Lily was on the ground first and is really coming along with her work in the field. I’m still not doing anything more than taking her for walks, working on obedience and laying the groundwork for retrieving. With that being said, she is a blast in the field nonetheless. Next up was Belle. There was still a fair amount of snow on the ground, and it was in the process of melting quickly. I was soaked after running Lily and figured we would just be going on a walk, because I suspected the pheasants would want no part of the melting snow. Almost immediately Belle went on point and up popped a tight sitting rooster that I managed to connect on. Next up was a hen point and a second rooster that sat so tight I kicked the cover multiple times before finally stepping on the bird. Belle had done her part, but the close-sitting bird had managed to scare me, and I promptly whiffed on three quick shots. We continued with two more stellar points on hens. Belle had been somewhat iffy all season and her performance was nearly perfect and her intensity on point had returned.
It was getting late in the day and I needed to get back to town to take my beautiful bride out for her birthday. Not wanting Maggie to be left out I took her out for a quick 15 minute run down a fence line and back. When I got back to the truck from running Belle a friend was in the parking lot and walked with me as Maggie burned off some pent up energy. I lamented on how good of bird dog she was but was just a walking accident due to only having one speed while working. Back at the truck all seemed fine after a quick once over and we headed for home.
At home I went to let the dogs out of the truck only to find Maggie not using a back leg. Initially I wasn’t too concerned, as the crusty snow had dinged up their feet and I figured it was a momentary irritation. I went about unloading the truck prior to letting them in the house. She was still carrying the back leg so I decided to have a closer look. I nearly threw up when I felt her calf: it was huge, rock hard and painful. All of these can be symptoms of a ruptured Achilles, but with her history I was also worried about some type of weird tumor that had been traumatized during the run. I would have only been thinking injury; however, she was completely normal at the truck and it was whatever happened during the ride home that resulted in the lameness. We canceled our dinner plans, started icing the leg and hoped for the best.
We awoke the next morning to a leg that was about three times normal size. I took her into the clinic for x-rays, which only showed the swelling and was quickly on the phone with one of the best veterinarians I know, thankfully still practicing at my alma mater, Iowa State. After a quick rearranging of the clinic schedule I loaded up an overnight bag and headed for Iowa State.
After being examined by internal medicine specialists, surgeons and radiologist, an injury was highest on the list, but with the oddity of the swelling (none of them had seen anything like it) cancer was also on that list. On ultrasound there was a defined area within the swelling and I was going to have to wait overnight for the results of the aspirate. That night in the motel room I took some pictures of the affected leg:
The next day we returned to the hospital and the news was not good. The samples taken from the swelling within the muscle showed cells that were highly suggestive of cancer. This wasn’t a guarantee of cancer, but it suddenly rose to the top of the list of possibilities. I couldn’t have been more devastated. Even though it was the very reason I made the trip, I had hoped it was just an overreaction on my part. The rest of the day was spent doing more ultrasounds and x-rays of Maggie, looking for any sign of cancer in her body. Thankfully everything kept coming back clear.
The surgeons took another look at her to determine whether they could go in and take a look for an exploration of the abnormality. It was determined that the best course would be to wait through the weekend and hope some of the swelling and hemorrhage in the leg resolved. Late in the day on Friday we pointed the car back home and drove the five-hour drive in rain, sleet, snow and wind.
We have spent this weekend icing Maggie’s leg and giving her a cocktail of medications to help with pain, discomfort and swelling. I’m very happy to report that she appears to be responding well to the treatment, and while it doesn’t necessarily help with the diagnosis we’re at least going in the right direction. For comparison here are some pictures from today:
and
and one from the inside:
We’re heading back bright and early in the morning for a follow-up ultrasound, followed by a surgery to explore the site, if the suspicious mass is still present. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers over the next couple of days. This little dog has been nothing but trouble since day one, but at the end of the day she is a one-of-a-kind and we love her. I’ve never in my life wished so much that a dog had a terrible muscle injury, but in this case it would make me a very, very happy guy.
I’ll keep you posted.
Monday morning dawned with the sliver still embedded in Belle’s eye. I had purchased some new equipment, borrowed some magnification and tried like heck to get the little piece out Friday and Saturday, but it just was too small. I set the alarm for four in the morning and loaded Belle up and we headed to Omaha to visit Dr. Tonya McIlnay at Veterinary Eye Specialists of Nebraska. I had spoken with Dr. McIlnay via phone a couple of times over the last year, but this was going to be my first visit to her facility.
Veterinary ophthalmologists are few and far between in the Midwest, and I’m happy to report that we have a great one in Dr. McIlnay in this part of the country. Prior to her recent arrival in Omaha our closest options were Ames, Iowa, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unfortunately it is one of the few veterinary specialties that is a necessity for many dog owners. It is important on two fronts: one, because the eyes are such fragile organs and for anything beyond the basics a boarded specialist is needed, and two, because in order to get a CERF performed on a breeding dog the exam has to be performed by an board-certified ophthalmologist.
Thankfully for Belle the appointment was a quick one. I had planned on spending most of the day in Omaha, as I was certain they would end up having to put her under and they were working me in on an already busy Monday. With me holding, Belle cooperating, and Dr. McIlnay’s steady hands, we attempted to address the issue in the exam room. The initial attempts were unsuccessful, as the plant piece was incredibly small. Dr. McIlnay had one more trick to try prior to going the surgical route, which involved physically grabbing Belle’s eyeball with an instrument in order to better manipulate the foreign body. It’s times like this that I’m thankful for well-behaved dogs, as Belle was a trooper and Dr. McIlnay was able to remove the offending piece. After arriving home it became obvious how much discomfort Belle had been in, because she immediately returned to eating with veracity and her winning personality returned.
I can’t thank Dr. McIlnay enough for her help and I have to strongly recommend her to any of you who are in this part of the country. For more information you can visit their website at: Veterinary Eye Specialists of Nebraska.
Belle and Dr. McIllnay after the offending piece of plant had been removed:
I’m happy to report that it would appear that everyone is back to full-strength. Maggie has been getting around well and shown no further symptoms of her back issues. I’m still in the boot but my foot is actually beginning to feel better, and Belle no longer has a stick in her eye. Of course as I type this the wind is howling and the snow is coming down hard with the season’s first blizzard. But hey, at least the dogs are healthy.
So far this season has been a disaster. I should just be thankful that I’m able to get out, but with the calamity that has resulted I’ve been anything but thrilled to this point. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but if it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
Last weekend Dad and I managed to sneak away for a multi-day hunt. The first day of the trip we were treated to winds over 60 MPH. Yes that was SIX ZERO miles per hour. While hunting the first spot of the day Dad had a rooster flush in front of him, and at less than 30 yards I could not hear the discharge of the gun. As we neared the truck we both agreed nothing good could come of hunting in these conditions. All was not lost though, as the small stock dams had a good amount of waterfowl on them, and although we didn’t have a retriever along, the wind would help us on that front. I managed a successful sneak on a group before breaking for lunch for the day.
The next day dawned nearly perfect and we decided to hunt hard to make up for the previous day, most of which was spent napping in the truck. The dogs, I thought, were in fine form:
Maggie had other plans, managing to rough up both front legs (between the feet and wrists) at the first spot we hunted. At the second spot I went through a panic situation that I hadn’t had to endure for a number of years. Maggie stumbled up to me with a bug-eyed look and clearly couldn’t see well. Her gait became very herky-jerky and I knew she was in trouble. The day was very cool and I had been using an in-the-field supplement to prevent this type of problem. For the last three or four years she hasn’t had any issues like this, and I thought they were well behind us. I immediately grabbed the first-aid kit to get the dog some sugar (in the form of dextrose), as I was certain she was experiencing hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). We alternated carrying her out of the field and the little dog was done for the day.
With Maggie on the bench we asked Belle to shoulder most of the load. By the end of the day she was tapped. As luck would have it we ran in to a friend of mine who I had been trying to hunt with for the previous few years. The timing had never worked out before, but fate intervened, and we ended up arriving at the same area late in the afternoon. The birds were less than cooperative, and during the last field I left the gun in the truck and followed with the camera. My friend’s GSP Annie was a joy to watch in the field and put on a show on a couple of pheasants:
The next day was even more beautiful than the first, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing from a hunting perspective. We did manage a couple of birds prior to heading home and both dogs hunted like a million bucks. My wife had tickets to a dinner event where Tom Brokaw was the keynote speaker, and my presence was strongly suggested, so we cut the trip short and returned home.
I awoke Wednesday to an all too familiar squint from Belle. I examined her eye closely and didn’t see anything immediately obvious. Even after staining her eye, I noticed only a few minor scrapes along the top part of her eye but nothing concerning. Later in the day I brought home the head loop from the clinic for a magnified view only to find an extremely small sliver embedded in her eye. The small plant piece was less than the diameter of a piece of hair and about 1mm long. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were heading into the month of November, looking to make up for lost time, and I was looking at Maggie with two raw legs and blood sugar issues, Belle with another corneal foreign body and me with a stress fracture of my left foot. This fall wasn’t exactly turning out the way I had hoped with all three members of the team trying to play injured.
I made several attempts to remove the object from Belle’s eye, but in the end I couldn’t find an instrument fine enough or magnification strong enough to get it done. In the morning we will be pointing the car south as we head to Omaha for a visit to an ophthalmologist. I’m really hoping it turns around from here.
Stay tuned for Belle’s latest adventure. I love these setters but it is getting to be a little like hunting with glass figurines.
Some of you will recall my season started out with me in an orthopedic boot due to a running injury. After three weeks in said boot, which included me walking off balance, I managed to flare-up the nerves in my back. I got done at the office on Saturday (the South Dakota pheasant opener) and spent the rest of the day laying on my back cussing my stupidity for ignoring the pain in my foot. A season that had started out bad was quickly sinking even further as I watched college football instead of two setters cornering roosters in a South Dakota field.
Thankfully Sunday I awoke to less pain. Chrissy had a week-long business trip on the calendar, so we decided to spend the day chasing dogs and enjoying what was left of the unseasonably nice weekend. It was the first time Chrissy had been in the field with little Miss Lily:
We had already had the other dogs out in the field and the little dog didn’t take long to tire in the increasing heat of the day. She is still a little devil, but with that being said, her training is progressing unbelievably well. I’m still taking the no pressure approach and I’m continually amazed at this little dog’s intelligence. Belle impressed me with her natural abilities, it will be a while before I see those in Lily; however, this dog’s intelligence is truly amazing. As has always been the case with me and dog training I’ve had to learn to slow it down and keep it fun.
After her first big romp in the field, I was behind the camera and didn’t even contemplate bringing a gun; we took a break as the temperatures continued to rise. Having spent some time behind each dog and having managed to scratch down a bird or two we called it a day so Chrissy could get home to pack.
Monday found me laying on my back again, only this time it wasn’t out of pain but rather in the uncomfortable tube known as an MRI machine. I had been praying my issues would be non-surgical and after the radiologist…in Boston amazingly…had a chance to take a look, I’d know my fate. Not expecting a call for 2-3 days I was surprised when my phone rang late this afternoon. The news was good and bad, I wouldn’t need surgery; however, I did have a stress fracture of the navicular bone in my left foot which would mean three more weeks in the boot and three more weeks of not running. Thankfully the doc ok’d hunting…though I’m not sure he would have had he really known how many miles we put in each day chasing prairie birds. I’m hoping this means I can finally get my season underway nearly two months late.
My hopes were that this year we would be able to hunt well in to December, since the last two years have found us snowed in shortly after Thanksgiving. Ironically as I type this the forecast is calling for the first snow of the season in parts of the state…what was that I had said about Spoo Luck?
For those of you who have been following the site for some time, you are all too familiar with the story of Emma. This past week was the one-year anniversary of our first wheelchair bird, a sharptail:
As luck would have it the anniversary of the above picture coincided with my first hunting trip of the year with my Dad. The forecast was for less than favorable conditions, but we headed out nonetheless.
We decided to start the trip on Emma’s Ridge, which is the spot in the above picture. It had been named after her long before we had success there out of the wheelchair, becaues it was a spot where the brown dog would shine. Many times prairie bird hunting is a big running dog’s game; however, at certain spots a flusher can really be the ticket, and such was the case with Emma on this ridge.
With Lily, the only flusher on the team, holding down the fort at home, we turned to Maggie as we started the day. We had passed through numerous birdy spots, and I was beginning to fear the ridge wasn’t going to produce its magic on this trip. About the time I was certain we were going to go birdless, Maggie slammed into a point at the crest of a ridge. I managed to salute the chicken with two barrels, allowing Dad to take his first bird of the year.
Out in a large flat Maggie once again showed signs of being just a little off. I called her in, watered her and took a short break to allow her to catch her breath. I was hoping that this season wasn’t an indication that Maggie was showing her age, but now I wasn’t so sure. After a brief rest I released her and not fifty yards from where we stopped she again went on point. Dad walked in and quickly had his second bird, a sharptail, in the bag. As we neared the truck Dad walked up another sharptail, which Maggie made a very nice retrieve on to give Dad his limit in under an hour in the field. It was fitting that these two managed a limit at such a memorable location on such a memorable day:
I, on the other hand, would not be so lucky. In the next field my young prodigy was quickly showing me what a two-year old doggie delinquent was like. So many people talk about the terrible twos with bird dogs. Since this was actually Belle’s third season I was hoping I had avoided that curse…I was wrong.
She did start out with a nice point on a prairie chicken but the rest of the field was downhill, as she bumped several groups. I initially gave her the benefit of the doubt, since the day was dead calm and the temps, while not hot, were also not cool. On our final swing she went into a nice point and proceeded to creep, then takout, the two sharpies in front of her, and I had seen enough. We convened an executive meeting in the field with me doing a lot of the talking and the little, formerly perfect, setter doing the listening. The dog I thought would never need any pressure, just molding, was quickly losing my vote of confidence.
We ended the day with both dogs on the ground. Maggie had continued to hunt conservatively most of the day, but this last field proved to be too much. She started with shorter and shorter casts before eventually just tucking in behind me and walking back to the truck. I was frustrated with the fact that I could not pin-point the cause of her change and felt sorry for her, as she obviously was not her old self. That evening she refused her supper and I was fearful it was going to be a one-dog year.
Up to this point I had been reluctant to use an anti-inflammatory, because I could not isolate the area or source of her pain. During the previous week I had started her back on a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement, and when we got back to the motel I popped her with some Rimadyl.
The next morning we awoke to a tremendous change in weather. It was in the low-40s, raining, and with wind gusts over 30 mph. Not exactly ideal hunting conditions, but since we were already committed we headed out in the field. There isn’t much to report from a bird aspect, because we just didn’t see them. About the only thing we accomplished was to get very wet and very cold. We tried short cover and tall cover, medium cover and tree covers and just did not find birds. The bright spot of the day was that Maggie was a new dog. I could not have dreamed that she would have this quick a turn around. After two doses of Rimadyl she was back to her old self. She hunted hard up until the end of the day, in crappy conditions, and readily ate and was looking for more. My misfit was back, hopefully to stay.
I’ll take a bit of a detour here to discuss Rimadyl, as I have received two questions this week in regards to its use. I’ll preface this by saying I have no connection to Pfizer. If one searches on the Internet, you’ll find plenty of people out there with an anti-Rimadyl sentiment and the suggestion that some of the other available anti-inflammatories are “safer.” I just don’t buy it. Rimadyl was the first on the market and very, very widely used. Based on sheer numbers of patients using the drug, you are going to have a few reactions. The key to me is looking at the percentage of patients that experience a reaction. I have not seen any hard figures, but I would wager Rimadyl is among the lowest, if not the lowest. All of the NSAIDs have potential adverse effects, and it is speculated that a dog that has issues with one of them potentially could have had the same reaction to the others.
In my own clinic practice, Rimadyl is the first anti-inflammatory to which I turn. That being said, we have four different NSAIDs in our clinic, and certainly I use the others in specific situations or in dogs that don’t seem to benefit from Rimadyl. At the end of the day the NSAID I turn to first in my own dogs is Rimadyl, for what it’s worth. Over the years I have had a very small number of dogs that we speculated reacted to Rimadyl. After quitting the drug and treating the reactions all of those dogs recovered uneventfully.
One last note on the hunting front. I promised more pictures this year and I even have a fancy new setup for carrying my DSLR camera while hunting. Unfortunately the miserable weather on this last trip did not allow me to use the new setup, which means we’ll have to wait until next time.
After having a number of road blocks thrown at us early on, I finally was able to get out on my first hunt of the year. I had been overly excited with the reports that were rolling in about spectacular cover conditions and better than average bird numbers. Having been successful in down years, I thought it was just a matter of showing up to collect a limit of birds. Oh how the grouse gods had another plan in place.
Saturday morning dawned crisp and cool with a heavy dew in the grass. I decided to start the day running Maggie, as she is the less heat tolerant of the two dogs, and my friend Brad had never hunted over her (ironically she had always been injured when we’ve hunted together previously). She started out in her normal manner but quickly slowed to a much more conservative pace than I was used to from Maggie. My hope was that after seven years she had finally learned to pace herself during the early season, instead of waiting until a month into the hunting year before collecting her wits. By the end of the field it was obvious something was up with Maggie, but it was hard to pinpoint. We ended the swing with no birds, but each dog did get a couple of pheasant points:
Next up was Belle. She was in typical early season form, pointing meadowlarks and being overly cautious with her early season false points. The grouse were definitely uncooperative, as not a single bird would let the dogs get close enough to consider pointing. I managed to walk up a straggler and promptly missed a very easy going away shot. At this point we had seen a number of birds, all four dogs had worked pheasants very well, and while we were birdless, I was feeling good about the start of the season.
We headed to another location, and Maggie was up again. She started out much snappier than she had ended the previous field, and I was hoping that maybe she had worked out whatever was ailing her. A half-mile from the truck she came in for some water, was released, and immediately circled back for more…after releasing her again she wouldn’t move and was very stilted and reluctant to even take a step. I unloaded the gun, hooked it in the back of my vest and carried her out of the field. Back at the truck, after a very thorough exam, I could find nothing to explain her behavior other than a slightly elevated temperature that slowly returned to normal. Here I was, one day into the hunting season and already down a dog.
By the time Brad made it back to the truck it had warmed beyond a safe hunting temp, so we headed back to town to catch some college football games. I monitored Maggie to see if I could get to the bottom of the situation. That evening we hit one more field after the afternoon heat had dissipated. Belle and Gus performed admirably, but my shooting, on the other hand, was embarrassing. Belle had two very nice points on birds only to have me whiff on both. Brad offered his helpful encouragement with, “Way too reward the dog, Joe!”
That night I began to suspect Maggie’s issues were related to her back, as she was walking with a very cobbled gait and had difficulty rising. I could elicit no pain from her, and decided she was on the bench for a while until I could perform more diagnostics. Not ready to call it quits I decided to hunt Belle on her own on my way home the next day. While Belle had performed solo duty in the past, it never was in this big open country. After several grouseless (we did encounter pheasants) hours the little dog uttered no mas:
So we pointed the truck towards home with two setters sharing the front seat in the comfort of the air-conditioned cab, instead of the crates under the topper. I had taken a few days off work for the trip, and now I was going to be heading back in early to spend the better part of the day performing diagnostics on the Maggie dog.
Initially all of the big picture items were looking good. On chest x-rays her lungs were clear and the radiologist noted her large, athletic heart:
On closer exam, she does have evidence of long-term changes taking place in her back. I’ve shown normal vertebrae and discs in blue and outlined some of the changes in red:
Instead of the smooth distinct junctions of the blue you can see the bony changes taking place along her spine. The radiologist wasn’t convinced this was the cause of her current condition, as many dogs will have these changes without any symptoms. With that being said, Maggie certainly has not been a dog to read the textbooks, and without any other finding to hang my hat on, I’m suspicious these changes may be contributing to some of our problems.
While I was taking the sixth x-ray of the day and finishing drawing the final blood samples, Tom (Dr. Rentschler) and I discussed the many, many unique problems Maggie has been through. The following is a list of either all firsts in my career, or “only in Maggie” cases I have seen: multiple ocular foreign bodies, one of which abscessed; a migrating foreign body in her chest; Grade 3 Mast Cell tumor; and hypoglycemia with blindness. The list of more pedestrian maladies would be hemorrhagic diarrhea (we nearly lost her a year ago), food allergies, inhalant allergies, foot foreign bodies, etc., etc., etc. The sad fact is this dog has been through more major health scares than most pet owners experience in a lifetime of owning pets. She’s lucky she’s owned by a vet, because I’m not sure anyone else could afford to keep her around.
Thankfully, other than the back and some mild arthritis in a hip, all of the diagnostic tests have come back normal. She has begun to perk up, and I’m hoping she’ll be ready to once again share duties in the field with Belle. As Chrissy comments every year, “I’d like just one year without a Maggie-near-death experience.”
Back to the results of our hunt, my easy limit of birds turned into a skunking. I left with two healthy dogs and came home with one on the injured reserve with an undiagnosed condition. Now I realize that things could have been worse, and at the end of the day I really had a good time being out chasing the dogs. That brings us to the title of this post. I always find it amusing when folks espouse that your luck is what you make, because if that was the case I long ago would have found a recipe for some of the good stuff. While I am fortunate to have many blessings in this life I also have a lot of plain crappy luck, and it is a trait that appears to have been genetic. It didn’t take too long into the marriage for Chrissy to begin cursing “Spoo Luck” and the same can be said for my brother-in-law. I’ll confess to not looking into Murphy’s Law’s namesake but I would wager a lot of money that somewhere back in his ancestry you would find a Spoo. Of course with my luck that’s a bet you probably should take.
The site is still slow, but I’m going to try to make up for some lost time this week and stay current. If you’ve visited the main page you will notice we are switching servers and relaunching the site in the next two weeks. We may experience a 24-48 hour period of being offline; however, after that, the site should be up and completely revamped. Stay tuned for updates.
Monday I was greeted by a golden retriever with severe eye inflammation. He had been into the local emergency vet a few days prior and was treated for a corneal ulcer (think of it as road rash of the eye). The owners reported on Monday that they had progressively gotten worse and that the dog seemed very uncomfortable. In this first picture you can see how irritated and swollen the tissues of the eye are:
Upon closer exam I could see the edges of what appeared to be plant matter. First I’ll show you the closeup:
Initially I could just see the obvious plant material to the left of the eye in the picture. However, if you look closer, in the other corner of the eye you can see a small bit of plant material. In the following picture the black arrows illustrate where some of the plant material was located. Also, if you look at the yellow line and then come back to the picture above you can see the edge of the ulcer. Essentially the plant material was rubbing a portion of the cornea off the eye. If you’ve ever had an eyelash stuck in your eye you know how painful it can be, just imagine plant seeds:
In the end we removed four different seed bodies, only two of which we could see initially. Likely when the dog initially went into the emergency hospital the eye was too inflamed and swollen, and the seeds too deep, for the veterinarian to see the seeds. By the time I saw the dog they had begun to migrate out:
I rechecked the dog on Friday and the eye was much improved and the dog much more comfortable. The ulcer had completely healed, and I’m happy to report he was back to normal. I realize I have gone a little overboard with these foreign bodies the last few weeks, and I apologize. That being said I have NEVER seen a problem like this, and I am extremely fearful of what the hunting season may bring. Please be vigilant with monitoring your hunting buddy during training and the upcoming hunting season.
While penetrating/migrating seeds should be a big fear for all dog owners, as illustrated in our last case, sometimes the very covers we spend hours and days in every fall can be just as harmful. My officemate had a lab that came in last fall with a small wound on his foot after pheasant hunting corn stubble all weekend. The wound appeared to be a small injury on the bottom surface of the paw, which was cleaned and the dog was placed on antibiotics. The dog appeared to be getting better with the wound on the bottom healing; however, about a week later the owners noticed a similar wound on the top of the paw.
With this new development a migrating foreign body was suspected and the dog was anesthetized for surgery. In this picture you can see how small the wound appeared at the time of surgery:
After the wound was explored it was quickly evident the extent of the wound on how deep the problem was:
Once the area was explored a piece of corn stalk was extracted. In the picture you can see the length of the piece. This dog had hunted for an entire day after the injury and outside of a small wound on the surface showed very little discomfort. 
Dogs will never cease to amaze me with the level of pain and discomfort they are able to endure while doing what they love. Even with adequate veterinary care, they are sometimes able to mask the seriousness of the problem. It is for this reason that I can’t stress enough the importance of understanding your healthy dog to the fullest so that when things are even slightly off kilter you may be able to pick up on them and address the problem before it becomes a serious issue.
Take the time to examine your dog after every session in the field and deal with problems as they occur to help ensure the best outcome for your hunting partner.
WARNING: THE ENTRY BELOW CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES THAT SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING
We deal with a number of unpleasant situations in the veterinary field. Thankfully I have a strong stomach and very few things still gross me out. One of the big exceptions is maggots. No matter how many times you experience them, it is something I can never get used to. I had initially planned on discussing fly bites with this week’s Case of the Week, and particularly the nasty skin infections they can cause around the ear tips of dogs. Then this springer walked into the practice, and I had to discuss one of the most terrible summertime issue we see…maggots.
I’d like to be able to tell you that we only see maggots very rarely, but unfortunately it seems to be a yearly occurrence. The most common site of maggot infestation is around the rectum and down into the groin. Often it will occur after a bout with loose stools that become matted in the fur and attract flies, which then result in maggots. The other common precursor to maggots is a wound that goes untreated or is rather large. In this particular case I am about to illustrate the dog had a tumor on its foot that had become infected, which in turn attracted the flies.
This is one of the situations that is extremely frustrating to me as a dog lover. I realize that not everyone can keep their dogs indoors; however, I still think we have a responsibility as pet owners to check on them to make sure situations like this don’t occur. Maggots do not infect an area overnight. Often the area of infection has been going on for a while in order for it to get to the level of maggot involvement. To be quite honest I feel the same way about severe fly bites on the ears; there are plenty of products available to help repel flies, and while you might get caught off guard with the first episode of fly bite it is something that should be dealt with immediately to prevent further discomfort. As pet owners we have a responsibility to treat and protect the animals in our care.
This is a picture of the dog’s foot, and while the infection is nasty the result isn’t immediately obvious:
Upon closer exam things do not look so good:
Every white speck in the above photo is a maggot inside this dog’s body.
Now, before I get asked the question how I could let this dog continue to suffer while I snapped pictures, I will say the dog was not suffering. Unfortunately he had been put to sleep because of this tumor, and the maggots were discovered after. I was so disgusted that this had happened. I felt that he wouldn’t have suffered in vain if at least one dog owner prevents this from happening to their outdoor dog as a result of this post.
While summer is typically too hot for much dog training and we are just starting to think about hunting seasons a mere two months away, please, please, please don’t forget about your hunting buddy out in that kennel.