The Closet Extrovert

It’s not a tumor! Well, it might have been, there’s was no way to know without a biopsy, but it *was* fairly disgusting. When Kerby was about a year old (he’s now 8.5 years old), we had a benign tumor removed from his chest. Over a year ago I noticed some odd bumps under his skin. Wondering if these new bumps were the same thing or something worse, I took him to the veterinarian and had them aspirated. The vet examined them and told me they were not anything to worry about, probably just weird little lumps of fat. Toward the end of last year, one of them, a small hairless bump under his neck, started growing… and growing… and growing…

Over the past few months it became so large I started characterizing it as his evil twin, with a voice like the kid’s imaginary friend from The Shining. About two weeks ago it started bleeding and oozing, and just generally looking nasty. Even though he was walking around with this foul thing dragging his jowl down, Kerby didn’t really seem notice it or be bothered by it. Since he wasn’t in pain, I put off going to the vet until I could figure out how I was going to pay for what was without doubt going to be another expensive surgery. I kept cleaning the area with antibacterial spray and wrapping it up with gauze and vetwrap but still worried about it getting infected. Freaking out a little more with each passing day, I finally accepted that a trip to the vet couldn’t be put off any longer.

Luckily for me, I have a friend who loves Kerby too and is always there for me when things get desperate. I owe him much thanks for leaving work early to drive us to the vet, loaning me funds to cover the immediate charges, and helping convince the vet to accept a payment plan for the balance (something which many vets will no longer do). Thanks to his help, Kerby spent the night of June 15th at the vet and had surgery the next morning. Another friend took me to pick him up the following afternoon. The surgery went great and everything looks like it will be fine. Kerby was really happy to get out of there! All told, that was a quick way to unload $650 that I don’t have and can’t afford; it would have been closer to $800 if I’d opted to have a biopsy done on the removed mass. I’m reconsidering pet insurance, but when I previously had it, it wasn’t much use. Every problem that arose seemed to be something they wouldn’t cover for one reason or another.

I love this dog to death, but he has had numerous health problems throughout his life. In addition to the two surgeries already mentioned, at about six months old he nearly choked to death after chewing up a fringed rug, getting his head tangled up in it. He was left with a thin scar trailing along his face from one side of his mouth, which isn’t all that visible, just an odd line where the hair grew back white instead of black. Not too much later, he started developing hairless patches, particularly around his eyes and mouth and a few other small areas. It was initially diagnosed as sarcoptic mange. Many expensive skin scrapings and bimonthly poison dips followed but there was little improvement. The diagnosis was changed to demodectic mange and poor Kerby spent the better part of a year with an e-collar around his neck to keep him from scratching, rubbing and licking at his hot spots. I started thinking of him as a satellite dish on legs.

When it was clear that nothing was improving, I took him to a canine dermatology specialist who thought maybe it was actually due to a food allergy and he was put on a hypoallergenic diet. I bought a special dry food and added it along with supplements and to fresh food I prepared for him every day. It helped a little, and I know I should really do a more thorough food trial to see if I can pin down the specific food(s) he may be allergic to. Hypoallergenic food does seem to help keep things under control, but has remained relatively hairless around the eyes.
These days I feed him a good quality dry food with glucosamine and chondroitin because he seems to have some trouble with his hips, especially when sitting on the floor. It’s probably the beginning stages of hip dysplasia, a common problem for his breeds, or it may be related to a patellar luxation that developed when he was a couple years old and jumped too high to catch a toy, landing badly. Luckily it seemed to heal on its own pretty well, although he occasionally limps just a little.

Kerby has also had a hematoma in both ears; I opted for surgery ($800) the first time so he wouldn’t end up with a “cauliflower ear” but his right ear is still a little crumply. The second time I passed on surgery because I simply couldn’t afford it. Instead, I had the vet drain the blood from Kerby’s ear twice and tried to keep it compressed so that it wouldn’t refill while healing on its own, but it wasn’t very effective and now his left ear is very crumply and hard to clean.

Last year he developed some kind of invisible irritation on one foot (another symptom of a possible food allergy) that caused him to repeatedly chomp on it until it bled. Luckily I was able to avoid a trip to the vet by using antibacterial cleanser and bandages left over from his prior surgery and it healed pretty well!

Ironically, Kerby has never had the much more common canine affliction, fleas.