Poor Miss Dahlia woke up with a swollen face this past Saturday. She had one last October. It meant a tooth abscess and surgery. So off to the vet she went and as it turned out she had a slab fracture of a back tooth which had (you guessed it!) resulted in a tooth abscess. She also had a strange growth near it, which was likely an epulis (a benign oral tumor).Monday she had surgery to remove both. Coupled with that, we opted to finally remove the sebaceous cyst that had been plaguing her for over a year. It started quite small but recently it's been getting larger and larger and had started to come to a head. She keeps trying to bite at it, but it's not in a place she can reach. Since it was irritating her and she was going under anesthesia anyway, we decided to remove it.
I had some sort of idea that there would be a tiny, 3" x 3" patch of shaved hair and a stitch or two. Silly me had no idea. Instead, she looks like some sort of poor Frankendog, with a huge patch of shaved hair and 5 stitches on her back.
With her thick fur it's exceptionally noticeable!
So now poor Miss Dahlia has her very own coat to wear outside. She'll get her stitches out in another week and a half. So far they don't seem to be bothering her too terribly much as she's leaping up on the couch and recliner with no problem. It looks far worse than it actually is as the incision was not very deep (sebaceous cysts are right below the skin). We'll likely even be doing a big agility seminar this Sunday, stitches and all!
Vets are psychos with how much they shave! For serious.
ReplyDeleteI have a show dog, and so always request no or minimal shaving... Clover was artificially inseminated for her last pregnancy, and they managed to put her on a drip etc without shaving her leg! They did have to shave her belly for the incision, but that wasn't extensive. I'm very pleased with my vet. :)
As much as I hate to see so much hair gone I can sort of understand why, especially with a dog who has so much fur! I'd rather the area not get contaminated than worry about infection. Since she's not a show dog (not even close! lol), it doesn't matter so much.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to take FOREVER to grow in though! It's now covered in hair but there's still so little. I imagine it'll be a few months before her hair is back to normal, the poor girl. At least she's no longer itchy.