Such an incredibly sad case. A loving owner, a well loved basset. 6 years of loving and togetherness.
Summer vacation and the hound goes to a boarding kennel for a week.
Comes out coughing and sneezing with nasal discharge.
2 weeks of veterinary intervention to get referred to a specialist who does an exploratory and testing to the tune of $15 k.
The young professional owner is over whelmed, the specialists all warn and predict dire outcome.
Mycobacteria. A very scary word. If you look it up you'll see the hype - those being leprosy and tuberculosis, both of which recommended protocol is euthanasia, both of which a teacher can not continue her career if this disease is present in her living situation. The reality is there are MANY mycobacteria these could be.
The hound came to us, this owner trusted us enough to surrender her baby - many tears and much heartache.
Every free moment of my time for the last 2 weeks has been spent in reading medical journals, treatment options, consulting with mentors. While we await the final pathology report.
Isolation for this hound. Both of these diseases are contagious and deadly. Zoonotic.
Tuberculosis as one mentor points out to me, used to be called Consumption.
If the symptoms translated "Consume everything in sight" then I might have believed in this very expensive and run around potential diagnosis. One of our older vets uses an analogy I love..... he says: "When I hear horses hoofs on the pavement, I look for a horse, not a zebra."
Within a day of preparing the Jean Dodds DVM Liver Cleanse diet, this hound was eating up a storm.
Adding milk thistle, acidophilus, raw honey, carrot juice has the yellow of her eyes - an obvious liver condition beginning to lessen.
And finally today they decided to share the final report - which they have had for a week.
None Found.
The hound in question is now released from ISO, we can focus on healing a liver issue - which can indeed be corrected. The hocus pocus and scare tactics are over. She is running as I watch her, free from her confines of the last month. High energy, great appetite, only the light yellow of her eyes to show any problem exists at all.
Somewhere to the South of us, an owner with tears in her eyes as she climbs into bed without her constant companion... having been forced to choose between huge vet bills and constant tubal feeding something a working professional cannot do - and the life of her fur child. How is that okay? How is it okay to take 1/3 of someone's annual salary and scare them to death?
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