My Life Is Never Dull

We have always seemed to have more than our fair share of 'stuff' going on, but typically it is something related to the humans in our family. Now it's related to the canines in the family or at least one of them.
Be prepared for some grossness . . . .

Lexie, the canine baby of the family, had a foul smell. My first reaction was "You need a bath." However, this was worse than the typical 'doggie needs a bath smell' and I was picking up clumps of dog hair. Upon examination I found that the area around her tail was bald, red, swollen, oozing and had a really foul odor. I had never seen anything like this in my life so I immediately ran to the Internet and started researching. I came across some really ugly possibilities, but the main cause of the problem seemed to be coming from what is referred to as a "hot spot." The best way to describe this, for those who don't already know, is an irritation to the skin that causes the most normal of dogs (not saying that my dog is normal) to suddenly turn OCD. They will bite, lick, and scratch at this area causing a bald spot which eventually becomes red, swollen, and oozy. Also smelly!!! To treat the hot spot it is best to use gentle compressions on the area with a cold, wet cloth. Much like a human would do for a minor burn or poison ivy.

The compressions seemed to be helping as she wasn't bothering the area as much, but then I noticed that one of her eyes was red and oozing. Our other dog, Jada, has allergies and I immediately assumed Lexie was having some allergy problems so I started giving her Benedryl. I think the Benedryl actually helped the itching from the hot spot, but didn't seem to do much for the eye and by yesterday both eyes were really red and watery. Then the area around the eyes became really red. I again ran to the Internet and found a number of thing that could potentially be causing the eye problem, but the one thing that became very clear during my research is that Ms. Lexie needed to go visit the vet and the sooner the better. So, this morning we headed off to see the vet and the expression on his face when he looked at her spoke volumes. This was not a good thing and it needed to be treated. Bottom line, the area around her tail is a good old fashioned hot spot and easily treated. However, he's not completely sure what's going on with the eyes. It's not uncommon for a dog to get an infection of the eyes that will cause them to become red and oozy, but it's not necessarily common for the area around the eyes to get red the way Lexie's have. The vet thinks she has an auto immune infection, which could also explain the reason for the hot spot, but he's not completely sure at this point. He is treating her with antibiotics, ointments and eye drops for now and if things don't get worse and begin to improve in a couple days, then we're good. If not, we're back in to see the vet which will most likely mean some tests to try and figure out what's going on. We're just going to hope that the current treatment does the trick and that our Lexie is back to her old self in no time.

Life around here is never dull, but is always an adventure. Boy are we living one adventurous life!!!!!!