Yesterday started out normal enough – Honey went for her walk, and after hauling another trailer load of limbs to the burning pile, I started mowing the yard. By the time I came in for lunch, though, things had changed.
Honey told me to look at Dusty, our little red Dachshund. After being her usual feisty self earlier in the day, she had suddenly become lethargic, she was obviously in pain and would barely lift her head to look around.
My first thought was snakebite – our dogs are hunters, hate snakes, and one or the other of them has managed to get bitten about once a year since they were pups. I checked her all over, but found no tell-tale swelling anywhere. I called the vet’s office and told them we were on the way.
The vet had a full schedule, and they had to work us in, so it took a while. Once we were finally in an exam room, it was determined that her temperature and heart rate were normal. Then they did blood tests, which came back normal, too.
Then, while we were waiting for the doctor, Dusty broke out in a rash.
I had never seen anything like it – one minute she looked the same as ever, and the next little patches of hair were sticking up out of her normally smooth coat. When the doctor came in, I pointed this out and he agreed that she was definitely covered in welts. The technician was quick to point out that they hadn’t been there when she worked on her just a few minutes earlier.
They gave her a Benadryl injection and a steroid shot, and sent us home with Prednisone tablets. $200 later, we still have no idea what caused the reaction, but by yesterday evening, Dusty was her usual ornery self.
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