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Pyometra scare

1K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  Cressrb 
#1 ·
We were sure we had a case of Pyo with Kiri yesterday. She has been acting off the past week. Not interested in usual activity. She loves Nose work, but Saturday after one run she was finished. Then by Sat. night she was getting cranky with Bodhi and banished him to the kitchen so she could make this huge nest of blankets and such. Then I thought it was a false pregnancy because it was the week she would have been due to whelp. Noticed she was licking herself a lot. The dogs seemed interested in her smell. Her thirst was inordinate. But still not running a fever so decided to wait and go to our regular vet this morning. By late last night she was spotting - lightly and then started vomiting. Considering everything I thought it was adding up to Pyo. The only reason I did not go to an ER vet then and there is because she had no fever yet and I have had bad experiences with unknown vets.
I was sick, sick, sick with foreboding. We got her in by 8:30 this morning. It is not Pyo! What a relief. Vet took an ultrasound and saw no fluid. Still no fever. The verdict was a case of vaginitis, she suspected. So broad spectrum antibiotic. Bland diet for awhile and yogurt.

We were so worried. Pyo is deadly. I am only relating this for the health thread in case anyone else experiences a similar in the future and searches this forum.
I know I have got on here to search other thoughts and experiences when I was unsure.
 
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#3 ·
Man, Bonnie--I'm sorry to hear about this. This winter one of Toad's daughters who had been bred came up with all the symptoms of pyo about the time she was due to whelp.

Only in her case it was pyo. Regular vet looked at the ultrasound and said they wanted her to go to a repro specialist immediately. Repro vet saw her immediately after that and said "Spay now..."

So she was spayed. Too bad since she was a nice Champion bitch with excellent breeding--but the bitch is more important (certainly to her owner) than any number of puppies.

Pyo is scarey--and can be deadly. The prospects of pyo in unspayed bitches is one of the reasons that I (if I kept bitches, but I don't) would spay any bitch who wasn't going to be bred--might not do it until they were 4 or 5 but I wouldn't leave them intact--I know of too many older bitches who ended up with emergency surgeries for pyo.

dobebug
 
#8 ·
....Pyo is scarey--and can be deadly. The prospects of pyo in unspayed bitches is one of the reasons that I (if I kept bitches, but I don't) would spay any bitch who wasn't going to be bred--might not do it until they were 4 or 5 but I wouldn't leave them intact--I know of too many older bitches who ended up with emergency surgeries for pyo.

dobebug
I won't leave bitches intact for this reason also - way too scary. A friend almost lost a pet girl (not a Dobe) last year - one week after losing her husband to cancer. I didn't know she was not spayed - she was 6 years old at the time and never bred. If I had known she was not spayed I would have made sure she got her to the vet as soon as she said that she did not seem to be feeling well. She was really lucky she survived!
 
#4 ·
Gretchen, we were freaking out. In the past have experienced both the open pyo and closed pyo. With the evidence of what we 'thought' was spotting, I knew she was better off waiting until this morning and of course our own vet, Carl Pew, an ICG vet. If she had been running a fever, I would not have waited even that short time. I know it is deadly, and they get very sick, very quickly.

In retrospect, I wish we had not waited this long to breed Kiri. We were having so much fun with her in the show ring and she did so well, but I knew we were coming up against it with her age of four when we first tried to breed her. So now we have had two natural and one TCI and still no success. I would be so happy with ONE puppy from her to keep those lines and type. Just one...

Bug, sorry about Toad's daughter. I knew we wouldn't be showing my bitch, Jada and for this reason I spayed her early (2 yrs).
 
#9 ·
So glad everything is okay. So scary!

Pyo risk is one reason I spayed Sypha this winter at age 4. With girls I think the risk of staying intact is much higher...with boys, not as much. But things are just not as clear cut as people like to make it out. She was not being bred, so she got fixed.
 
#10 ·
I normally leave my males intact--but because prostate problems fall into the same category as pyometra in bitches several of my older dogs have been neutered.

Usually with males you get some prior warning with prostate issues with older bitches you get hardly any warning if it's a closed pyo and then it becomes a real big emergency. Open pyo's not nearly as much.

Toad got neutered when he was well over 9. And he'd never had any indications of a potential prostate issues. One of the tech's took him out for a walk and came back saying that the urine was bloody. So we waited until just before Toad and I were going home and one of the vets did a urine draw from the bladder. Even sent it out for testing. Came back with some stuff going on we didn't really want to see. Sent all the information including digital x-rays and ultra-sounds down to a repro vet for her opinion. She called and said she wanted to send it on to a urologist (she said, the best one on the west coast) so that happened and we got a report the following day from both the repro vet and the urologist--recommending that at his age they'd recommend neutering. The primary consideration in his case was age and breed. Both of them said that he could be safely neutered now but with potential cardio, his age and breed it would be better for him to do it now rather than later when they only way to safely neuter would be not anesthesizing him but doing a saddle block (which come with their own dangers).

He had two litters at that point--nice puppies and a couple that were really, really nice and his champion sons were by that time standing at stud and his very beautiful (the dam of STJ's McCoy) daughter had multiple litters and multiple champion puppies. So we neutered him.

And I had offered many times to collect him to have frozen semen available--and you know that the week after he was neutered I ran into one of his big fans a breeders who was waiting for the perfect bitch to breed him to--she caught me after judging and said she had the perfect bitch--sometimes you can't wait for perfect...I felt bad and she felt bad but sometimes it works out that way--he hadn't been collected and now there was nothing to collect.

It's about 50/50 on my intact males--half of them get neutered because they start having mild prostate issues--but the ones that don't go on their merry way--intact.

dobebug
 
#12 ·
Thank heavens at least a few people get that there are inevitable decisions that go along with neutering vs not neutering males.

And if there hadn't been the issue of Breed and cardio--even in Toad's case collecting a fawn male--even with excellent blood lines, longevity and some outstanding puppies around who were very nice--there aren't that many breeders that his breeder (who actually retained breeding rights to him and yay or nay rights on bitches he might be bred to). There just aren't that many breeders (who I'd want any dog of mine bred to) who wanted to have the prospects of getting dilute puppies. Even though when his breeder used him she made sure her bitches were not carrying dilution--with fawns it's pretty easy--what you see is what you get--red carrying dilution--breed anything that also carries dilution just in terms of odds you are likely to get dilute puppies at least some dilute puppies.

And with dilution there is no absolute guarantee exactly how their coats will turn out--the fact that Toad ended up one of the exceptions who carried a full coat all his life was to a large degree, luck of the draw.

ABTLH
 
#14 ·
I don't think it's sex linked Mel. Male pattern baldness does genetically come down through the female liines.

I've never seen any studies done on that possibility but the chances of good versus bad coat in dilutes (due to CDA) does run in bloodlines. I'd seen several of Michelles fawn coats (which are more likely than blue coats anyway to be less a mess because of CDA) on fawns that were bred by her who actually did have better than usual coats and kept them. So I figured that I had better odds of getting a decent coat from her breeding than any other.

But Royalwood (Washington State breeder) had bred to Chaos about the same time Michelle did and I don't remember if it was their Chaos litter that had two fawn bitches who did retain good coats or it was the following generation that did and Toad is a Chaos Grandson.

I think the bottom line is luck of the draw--genetics can only predict so much in so many cases and because a lot of this stuff (and I think prospects of CDA falls into this category) is polygenetic it makes it much harder to predict.

But it remains the case that your prospects, with dilutes, for good coats is best when dilutes in preceeding generations of the line have had and retained good coats.

I really don't think there have been any definitive studies done on CDA and Dobe dilutes. It's kind of frustration but I suspect it's regarded as not high on the importance list. But it's really irritating to me when some one with a dilute dog tells me that her vet says the coat is bad because of CDA (because the dog is blue or fawn) and not a thyroid problem.

Hypothyroidism is so common in Dobermans that any dilute dog whose coat is getting worse should be tested with a full thyroid panel.

Toad was both hypothyroid and fawn--but treating him for the hypothyroidism left him with a coat that lasted 14 years and made vets who came into our clinic and saw him and found out how old he was drop their jaws. The clinic owner liked to make fun of them--he'd have them guess how old he was. By the time he was 6 no one who hadn't known him since he was a puppy believed how old he was.

dobebug
 
#15 ·
DUH! Don't know what I was thinking this morning when I said that Toad was a Chaos grandson. Chaos (Ch Legend's Extravaganza V Deco CD is his great grandsire (actually he's one of the grandsires on his dam's side.) The breeding to Chaos produced reds, blacks and fawns--a Ch fawn bitch and two males (pets, according to Michelle).

My apologies...

dobebug
 
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