Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

Hey everypawdy. Well, no news is just no news at this point. The staff at A&M is baffled by this, it's not typical presentation of anything they can think of, so it looks like a biopsy and ultrasound is next. We are waiting for word on the plan of action. The holiday is slowing everything down, after today the clinic is closed until Monday to everything but life-threatening emergencies. 

Here's a pic of Wyatt from yesterday. I don't think we've ever seen those giant satellite dish ears of his go sideways. He's not happy.

The docs told us that one theory as to what this could be is pythiosis, a water mold infection that is rare but rapidly growing among dogs who have been exposed to lakes, ponds, etc. The lesion/tumor thing looks a lot like pythiosis ones and the more we read about it, the more it sounds like this could be what he has. The only vet school testing for this disease is at Louisiana State, which is kinda funny because when we were driving out to Texas we actually thought about taking him to LSU instead. A biopsy will be sent there and it can take up to a week for results. Treatment is not easy.

No matter what we are dealing with, complete removal is probably not an option because the mass is in a very bad place 

The weirdest thing of all of this, is that exactly six years ago today, on November 21, 2006, a certain German Shepherd dog named Jerry underwent amputation at UC Davis in California. Sigh.

We'll have an update later today hopefully.

Hey Shanna, thanks for the hugs. He is there at A&M.

Well, we just spoke with the primary vet, who was in the OR with Wyatt today. The docs did an exploratory surgery this morning to get some tissue samples, and what they found was that whatever this thing is, it's created a deep "tract" from his butt up to his spine, that goes up as far as his C4 vertebra, basically just past his hip bones.

Our wild boy has the brilliant minds there completely stumped. The actual mass is secondary to something else that's going on, and whatever it is, the vet told us it's "definitely serious." 

Wyatt will be at the hospital with 24-hour care until at least Monday. He's got drains in him and needs supervision to prevent infection, etc. On Monday, we should hopefully have the lab results back (minus the fungal tests, which can take about a week) and can then determine the next steps, probably a MRI. 

Ugh. 

Thanks for the support everyone, we can feel the love and need it more than ever.