Sick Sick Sick Puppy?

by Kim
(Canada)

We have a puppy that has seen 4 vets. None can tell us what is wrong with her.

She "might" have HOD but also and recently has ulcers in her mouth swollen glands and yellow liquid stool. She will not eat because of the ulcers, so we have been making a liquid diet and feeding her water via syringe .

We were just at the vets again and she has put her on antibiotics for the glands. She and 3 other pups fell ill at about 10 weeks.

Please help us!







Hi Kim
I REALLY wish that I could help here, but I'm not a veterinarian myself and vets are much more qualified and able to make a diagnosis than I wold be.

I'm so sorry to hear what is happening with your puppies as this must be heartbreaking and worrying you to distraction. I'm going to give you my thoughts, but they are simply ideas and suggestions.

With swollen lymph nodes, mouth ulcers and swollen or painful joints (I'm assuming this is what resulted in the possible diagnosis of HOD), I would be inclined to think of some auto-immune disease or possibly even an inherited auto-immune condition.

In addition to the antibiotics I'm wondering if your vet has prescribed corticosteroids to reduce inflammation? Or anti-inflammatory meds? If not, then it's something I would suggest to him/her. I would also discuss the possibility of it being an auto-immune condition (of course your vet may already have thought of this and ruled it out) and asking whether immuno-suppressive drugs should be tried.

As 4 puppies are affected it's most likely either hereditary or infectious. Could they have been in contact with anything toxic? Had they been vaccinated, or had their diet changed, shortly before they fell ill? Perhaps if you can identify anything that happened within a week or so of them getting sick you may be able to shed some light on what is at the root of the problem.

I'm so very sorry that I can't be of more help, but I simply don't have the training or knowledge that a veterinarian does. However, perhaps one of the suggestions or questions above will help move you in the right direction.

I wish you the very best of luck with this and pray that a veterinarian will be able to find out what is causing this illness and get the right treatment in place.