Canine Abcesses

Good Morning Permies!

I will start this post with the obligatory, I have been to a vet.

Has anyone encountered multiple abscesses on their dogs in the past? I might be correlating some events together but it seems strange that all my dogs issues has happened in the last few months.

Two months ago, my dog some skin irritation on her upper right shoulder that I assumed was from her rough housing. Fur was missing and it was a little scabby. A week later, she had chewed a spot on her tail and there was an abscess bump. We went to the vet during this and she didn't have any worries. She said just keep an eye on it and wait for it to clear. Low and behold, they both cleared without an issue. The tail drained on its own and the shoulder cleared up.

I utilized Wound-Kote spray, it seemed to do the job. The dog in revenge rubbed up against my gray couch and put nice purple marks all over it. I'll take it.

Speed up to yesterday!

I get home, I meet her at the door to take her out, I grab her face for some rubs and my hand is COATED in grossness. Right under her right ear is weeping! What the heck!? Investigation found that she had been laying on my partners pillow on our bed and it seems that is when it 'let go'.

Any advice? Any similar experiences? I'm touching base with a family friend who is a vet to see if we should go back but I have never seen this. She is healthy otherwise! Just irritated that I keep cleaning her face.

Howdy,

Some years ago I had a dog that got a swollen neck. I noticed that he quit eating. The vet said it looked like he had peirced his throat while eating with a sharp object, probably a bone. I just had to watch him for changes and make sure he was getting liquids. Some time later,(week/10 days?), I noticed this "lump" was moving up into his jaw and eventually a few days later was below his gum line where it burst in my hand. "Roadside",(his name cause thats where we found him), was all better after that and it didn't return.

peace,rc

I appreciate hearing about your experience, it gives a little sense of relief that I am not alone. 'Ruthie' is a bull in a china shop, so I am not surprised. What surprises me the most is she hasn't had issues up until now!

Just going to monitor and keep her clean, she is pretty resilient. Worse case is a trip the vet for some antibiotics.

Our dog is going through something that sounds like what you described that caused you to originally take your dog to the vet.

Our dog developed a bare hairless scabby-looking spot on her shoulderand her skin is black. She is a Tan colored dog.

The first vet we took her to was for something else though it was at the very start of her losing her hair.

I was given a tube of ointment for a yeast infection.

When the condition got worse we took her to a different vet to ask about her skin turning black.

The 2nd vet said it was is an autoimmune disease and said to give her Omega 3 vitamins and use A & D ointment on the spots.

I have not seen anything though that looks like abscesses.

To me, the Omega 3 vitamins have helped her the most.

Our daughter is a vet tech who chose to go into marketing veterinary products.

Our daughter thought at first that this was a mite problem and told us to use a Clotrimazole solution on the spots.

That seemed to help though I think it was the carrier oil that was helping the most.

After talking with several of her clients and showing the pictures of our dog's problem, our daughter now says it is a yeast infection and says to continue with the clotrimazole solution.

I hope you find a solution to your dog's problem.

I feel the ear weeping could be ear mites or an ear infection.

Dogs get into stuff. We haven't had the problem with either of our 4yr old girls, but in the past, I've had dogs that have found a bit of metal or glass with their nose or paw, got pricked with thorns &/or burrs, were stung or bitten by spiders, bees, wasps, etc. Most of the time, you won't even know about it. Sometimes, it will develop a small abcess, sometimes it will itch like crazy, and they'll chew at it, expose it to whatever else they've gotten into, and cause the abcess.


As an herbalist, I usually treat these things very similarly to how I'd treat a human - cleaning, drawing salve, and wrapping, followed by check-ups, cleaning, a healing salve, and more wrapping, as the wound progresses. Because I do it like this, I make all my drawing & healing salves 'critter safe', because they often (if they can reach it) will chew off the wrapping, and lick the salve off. My usual take, when I notice an issue, has always been clean & treat as needed, and observe closely. If healing doesn't begin to happen within 24-48hrs, &/or things begin to worsen, i.e. dog starts acting 'off', or abcess worsens, etc, then we go to the vet.

Carla, do you know which herbs are good for fungal infections?

Would apple cider vinegar help?

Thank you everyone for your input and experiences.

She has been skittish sense the discovery, she will come to me when she needs to go outside or if I mention the word "Cheese" but otherwise she has been pretty independent.

I tried a day ago to clean her face where it is draining but a warm moist cloth was not doing enough. I got her into the shower and we sat there together while I gently irrigated her cheek. I got the buildup off and could actually inspect her face without much fuss. I am not 100% sure of the root cause but I'm pretty sure this was from some kind of stick or pricker causing a cut that turned into the abscess.

I do wish dogs could talk so I could treat her better, I could tell she understood what I was doing for her was for her benefit as she was incredibly social after her bath when usually she HATES baths, but I'll have to rely on experts and intuition that I have developed over our partnership.

The most recent update is that there does not appear to be any infection so far, but still a little bit of draining. We utilized antibiotic ointment that I had on hand and treated a wide area of her cheek.

I have heard a suggestion without much supporting information that perhaps shaving down the area might make it easy to watch/treat? I don't think I will do it because we seem to be on the right course and I don't want to jinx it.

What I use for infection, whether fungal or bacterial are raw honey (Manuka, if at all possible), pure frankincense oil, fresh, raw garlic, thyme, & raw, organic apple cider vinegar, though not necessarily all at once. There are other things too, but these are things I typically have on hand. For external, open wounds like this one, if I am out of my salve, or it's a situation where salves would be too messy to be practical, I'd probably combine honey & frankincense (4 or 5 drops of frankincense:2 Tablespoons honey, mixed well) to make a compress, then apply it with a well-saturated bit of cloth, after cleaning the wound, then wrap it, to keep it in place. If wrapping it isn't an option (and it often isn't, with critters), I'd simply reapply it - 2 - 3x/day, and do whatever possible to prevent or distract said critter from disturbing it. Supporting this external treatment with diet will help, too. An oxymel (typically 1:1 honey & apple cider vinegar) is usually an easy base to get a dog to take. Thyme is a very strong flavor to dogs, and garlic can be bad, in large doses. A good rule of thumb on both is to only use amounts that would be considered mild seasoning/ flavoring. That works well, with ground meats, because is easy to take a quarter of a pound of ground meat, mix in a minced clove (not a whole head) of fresh, raw garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme. Dosing of course, would depend on the size of the dog, but a series of smaller 'treat' size portions throughout the day would be better than one 'meal' sized portion, once a day.


Edited to add: the oxymel can be given in their water, and some critters will love it straight up. I'd offer 1 - 2teaspoons per 20lbs of critter, 2 or 3x/day, for a week, or so, depending on progress. 1 tablespoonful of oxymel, stirred into a glass of water is in the flavor zone of lemonade, and it has excellent health benefits for humans and many critters, alike.

We believe after all this time we have put one and one together to figure out the source.

It appears that this injury came from getting tangled up into a Hawthorne tree's thorns and getting scratched/punctured.

It took a while to observe it, but she has almost a negative reaction going right up against the tree. I actually caught myself on a thorn and then realization came together that the bacteria found commonly on the thorns could of caused the issues. She likes to 'charge' rabbits and could of learned her lesson when trying to navigate the hawthorn.