Around noon, my dog and I were chilling on the couch, when she woke up and decided to head to the kitchen for her usual check to see if anyone had dropped anything on the floor. When she got off the couch, her back legs looked odd, but I put that down to being a bit stiff after her nap…she’s 14. I was quickly disabused of that notion when she started staggering like a drunken sailor on the way to the kitchen. Knowing that she hadn’t yet had her afternoon cocktails (note for the humor impaired…I do not actually give my dog an afternoon cocktail), I was fairly alarmed. DH did the world’s fastest pants-don, and whisked her to the vet.
Now, we are currently stationed in Japan, and our base vet really only deals with the military working dogs, with the occasional well-pet visit here and there. They don’t deal with sick animals or emergencies, so we see a Japanese vet. He’s a very nice guy, and has very good English, but I think medical protocols here are a bit different from the States. Anyway, he did blood work, said her heart sounded ‘loud’, and sent DH home with two meds, and said come back in 10 days. So…what is it, I ask, when DH and staggering pup get home. “Um…he didn’t really say.” “What are those meds?” “Um…I didn’t ask.” Gah!
Fortunately, my SIL is a vet, and we have Skype, so I call and wake up her and my brother, tell them to get on Skype, and follow the dog around with my computer. “WTF!?” I ask my SIL. She asks me a few questions, has me point the computer screen at various bits of my dog, and says it’s probably http://thebark.com/content/idiopathic-or-old-dog-vestibular-disease.
It looks scary, but odds are it will resolve in 3-7 days. Oh, and the meds are almost certainly antibiotics and prednisone, which we can give just in case, but don’t really need to. Which is good, because I really did not fancy forcing meds down the dog’s throat twice a day for 10 days.
So, the next few days we’ll be making sure she eats and drinks adequately, and giving her extra assistance with going outside, but she should make a full recovery. Scary as all hell, though! Anyone else ever dealt with this?