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Drama Filled Weekend

1K views 23 replies 15 participants last post by  sam&macksmom 
#1 · (Edited)
This past weekend I took Ivan tent camping for the first time. I know Ivan can be skittish at night, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Needless to say it was a very looooong night. Ivan was on alert and couldn't relax. A couple of times he would start to settle down and then there'd be another noise and he'd be up pacing around the tent again. Would have been interesting to see how he handled a second night, but that'll have to be another time.

Then on Saturday we went hiking with an organized group. At one point I saw an unleashed dog on the trail behind us. I wasn't thrilled with that as Ivan can get excited if he sees a dog and isn't allowed to meet it and I just didn't know what would happen should they catch up.

We moved forward down the trail, but then the group had to stop as a couple members of the group where turning back and the people that organized the event had to determine what guide was taking them out, etc.

While waiting I turn around and there's the unleashed dog. I go to turn back around and move Ivan away from the dog and it's already too late. Without any sort of warning or lead up this other dog, who is a Golden Retreiver, is latched onto the side of Ivan's head. I grab both of their collars, but don't have the strength to pull them apart. The other members of the group I'm hiking with join in as does the owner of the unleashed dog, but we can't get them apart.

Ivan is screaming and the other dog's owner is yelling at him to let go and prying on his jaws, but isn't having any luck. One of the guy's in my group punches the Golden in the ribs with no reaction.

Finally the other dog, Bentley, lets go of Ivan. Amazingly Ivan has no punctures and only some scrapes on the back of his ear by the base near the skull. The other owner sticks around to make sure Ivan is okay and apologizes. I tell him to just please make sure to leash your dog.

So on Sunday around noon I'm laying on the couch and watching a movie while Ivan chews on a bone. I move my foot and notice the couch is awfully wet and look down and see a good bit of blood. I immediately look at Ivan's ear and can see no evidence of anything bleeding. Then I'm wondering am I bleeding somewhere? LOL WTH?

I then look at his dog bed and see blood down there, where he had initially started chewing his bone. I look at his mouth and gums and don't see anything.

I go into the kitchen and get some paper towels and peroxide to clean up them mess and realize on the way back into the room that Ivan's nose is wet. I dab it with the paper towels and it's blood. I look at his nose and can find no scratches or damage of any sort.

I don't think it's from the dog fight or him breathing anything in while on the hike as that was 20 hours ago ago at this point. I then wondered if my one cat could have scratched him, as she was upstairs at one point, but she is blind and I didn't see her make contact with him. Nor did I hear him whimper. This was in the kitchen. Time passed, she was back downstairs, and he was in the living room before he started bleeding. I honestly can't put an exact timeline together though.

It had stopped bleeding for a while, but then later that day he started sneezing and sprayed blood all over the kitchen. Could have been a CSI blood splatter scene there was so much. I got him to settle down and it stopped. No blood last night or this morning.

I don't know what to make of the bleeding nose. I don't see any evidence that my cat got a hold of him. But I don't know how to explain it. And searching the Internet was terrifying - nasal cancers. Anyone else like terrifying themselves? :(

ETA: I have an acupuncture appt. tonight for my one cat, so I will bring this up to my vet then. And obviously if it starts bleeding again Ivan will be off to the vet.
 
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#2 ·
That's really scary when another dog attacks your dog. I would call the vet and get their opinion and ask if they want to see Ivan. I tend to think it is somehow related to the attack, even though the bleeding started a day later.
The fact that our Dobes are short-haired usually means when another dog latches on that there will be puncture wounds. If not, perhaps there is damage underneath?? I don't know but I would be concerned.
 
#4 ·
I'm sorry to hear about your horrible weekend! I hope it is nothing serious! I would take him to the vet just to make sure it isnt something serious though, especially if it starts bleeding again.
 
#5 ·
Perhaps when the Golden grabbed him he hit him with enough force to cause some internal damage to the nasal passage which could cause some bleeding. I would bring it to the attention of your vet. Do you know Ivan's vWD status? If not, I would definitely be doing the DNA test to find out.

Jan
 
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#7 ·
Wow, thats scary, I'm sorry you guys :( If he bleeds again, I would have him scoped and Marieldobes is right, it is a good idea to check for vWD (DO NOT allow them to perform venipuncture on his jugular vein, please :) ) Also keep an eye on his mucus membranes (gums and inside of eyelids) as they should be nice and pink/moist
 
#13 · (Edited)
Yesterday when I got home Ivan was fine. Went for a car ride to run errands and he huffed some while he had his head out the window, but no sneezing and no blood.

Later that night I knew he was itching for some exercise so we played with his flirt pole for a bit. Then we sat out in the cool air for 10 minutes or so before going inside.

This is when I realized his nose was bleeding again. Watery blood. Not nearly as much as the day before. I chalked it up to me "aggravating" the problem and decided he'd have to deal with a couple days of downtime and we'd go from there.

That night he was chewing on a bone and started gagging. I turned on the lights in time to see him throw up some mucuosy bile about the size of a teaspoon. There was a slight vein of blood in it. I assumed he had some drainage going on from the nose and didn't think too much of it.

The next morning while I'm getting breakfast ready he's chewing on a bone again and then starts barking at me wanting some of my scrambled eggs. Next thing I know he's sneezing watery blood - again not much. However, I realized it was now coming out of the opposite nostril. :confused:

I did talk to my vet about it last night and realistically he couldn't say anything with any certainty. He said the only way to really know what was going on would be to scope Ivan, which he doesn't have the ability to do. He didn't think the fight had anything to do with it - but at the time I talked to him it was only the opposite side nostril that had bled. He said if it was a foreign body Ivan would be sneezing, which Ivan seems to do only every other episode - and I feel has more to do with having a runny nose than there being an object in there.

Since it switched sides this morning, which I would think rules out the foreign body possibility, I went ahead and asked my vet to refer me to a specialist. I'm still waiting for them to call and schedule the appt.

I very well may be taking him in for "nothing," but if it was just a bloody nose I would think it'd be over with by now. And why would it switch sides? It rained here yesterday, so although warm the air definitely wasn't dry.
 
#18 ·
Just some advice from experience. Never try to pull the dogs apart. Grab the offending dogs throat, either with a single handed grasp or wrap your arm underneath the neck, like you would do a choke hold if they have a thick scruff.

I mean, you can try to pull them apart, but like you said, strength becomes a factor and if the latching dog has a potentially fatal, or seriously capable of injury, grip on your dog...time is of the essence.

Choking is the fastest way to get them to release without doing something more serious that could injure them.

I, for one, have no fear of dogs or getting bitten, so I am willing to get in close enough to choke them to get them to release a grip. Now if they are just being aggressive and not latched on to a sensitive part of another dog/person, etc., there are tons of things to do, pick your poison.
 
#20 ·
These situations make my blood boil. When not on my own property, my dogs are on leash. I've run into this too many times. I intercepted a boxer on its way to my leashed dalmatian several years ago. It looked aggressive so i pulled my dog back behind me and put both hands around the boxers neck and lifted it. The only thing that stopped me was his owner running up screaming. If it wasn't a woman there most likely would have been an altercation. Don't endanger me or my dog or my kids with your neglect. I also had a friend that was out in the woods with a **** hound. It ran into a pit bull and pepper spray was ineffective so he had to shoot. Nearly lost the hound...pitbulls can do an amazing amount of damage.
I'll remember this story though..i'll tell it next time someone gives me one of "those looks" when they find out i have a dobe and a 3-year-old at home and give me the "you should have a golden" line.
 
#21 · (Edited)
I have no desire what-so-ever to get bit. However, when it was my dog screaming, getting bit didn't even cross my mind. I've always heard you should wheelbarrow dogs that are fighting. I don't know if lifting up their back legs would have any effect on getting them to let go or if it's a suggested approach solely because it decreases the chances of a person getting bit.

Thankfully I was with a group of people so I had help. There have been numerous occassions where I've gone hiking with foster dogs or other volunteers' dogs by myself. It's made me think how lucky I was. What if I'd been walking with a foster dog I didn't know as well and likewise didn't know me? What if there wasn't anyone to help? What if it had been a more intense fight?

Before I go hiking solo again with just me and my dog, I'm definitely getting something. Leaning more towards a stun gun than pepper spray since it's less controllable - i.e. wind.
 
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