(no subject)

[puddleshark]

Max isn't doing too well. He has been on pain relief - Loxycom and Gabapentin - all summer, but it doesn't seem to be having much effect. Some days he manages a fifteen minute walk. Some days we walk out the door, and he just wants to turn round and head straight back in. (And be given the usual post-walk biscuit. Because there's nothing at all wrong with his appetite.)

He has become increasingly reactive and snappy, and refuses pointblank to have his front paws washed.

We visited the vet about three weeks ago, and while the veterinary nurse held Max (Max doing a creditable impersonation of a crocodile), the head vet had a good look at Max's paws, but couldn't find any injury, and thought that the problem might be a combination of Max's flat feet and the hard ground.

But we had another consultation with the head vet today after a sore suddenly appeared on Max's left front paw.
For the moment the vet is treating it as a nailbed infection, with antibiotics. But the vet warned that is looking more like a tumour in the pad, and none of the options are easy with that. Particularly since Max already has such poor foot conformation.

We'll see how it goes with the antibiotics, and go back in a week's time.

***

I should add, a poorly paw did not stop Max killing a young jackdaw in the garden last week. The poor bird must already have been ill or injured, because it didn't take off, just fluttered in front of Max, who may be old and lame and missing quite a few teeth, but he is still a dog, by heaven! - and if birdies will flutter in front of his jaws, he'll have 'em.

Wish it hadn't been a jackdaw, though. I like the jackdaws, even if they do wake me with their chimneypot conversations in the morning - they're such characters.

Comments

[nikonf3]

Sorry to hear he is having problems.

[puddleshark]

Thank you.

For now Max seems to be coping well enough, and he certainly hasn't lost his appetite!