mangey mutt...

So Gracie has had this red spot on her right temple for over a month, now. I just thought it was where she was brushing against the corner of the brick when coming in the back door from the yard. I've seen her do this quite a bit. We 'padded' the brick with duck tape and assumed it would heal and go away. About 2 weeks ago, a red spot similar to the one on her temple appeared on the top of her back foot. It is kind of up by her toes so I thought again, she must have scraped her foot. Well, last week one of the spots appeared on the back of her head. Since I'm fairly sure it would be difficult for even her to scrape the back of her head on something, I knew it was time to see the vet.
We've gradually transferred her care to Dr. Kevin Marcum in Frisco. We love him and he is so good with her and 'the twins', Maggie and Miley. He took one look at it and said that '4 letter' word that I was afraid of...mange. It just sounds ugly! The good news is that it is demodex and not sarcoptic. For those of you not educated in the matters of mange (as I was prior to our introduction to sarcoptic mange with Tucker, another weim puppy we fostered), demodex is the the lesser of two evils. Sarcoptic is contagious and makes the dog miserable...at least it did to Tucker. That poor little guy's tummy was bright red, had bumps all over it and he just scratched and whined all weekend til we could get to the vet. Then we had to treat M & M and worry about the girls because it's apparently transferable from dog to human.
Anyway, demodex is fairly easy to treat and not contagious. Dr. Marcum invited me back to see 'them' in the microscope following him scraping the red spots on Gracie. Really? I'm game...I've always been interested in the weird and gross stuff. I love the Discovery Health Channel and this can't be any worse than that. I go look and as I'm walking back to the exam room, I notice I've begun to itch...
So Gracie is on an antibiotic and another med that we apply topically (much like Frontline) to her back between the shoulder blades and lower back. The topical goes on once a week for 3 weeks and it really smells! My car smelled like that for several days.
Other than that, she's doing great! We weighed her and she is now 32.6 pounds! Which explains why my arms were asleep by the time I got her out of the car and into the vet's office. We are definitely going to have to get going on her training. I can't keep carrying her if she is unsure of the surface she is walking on. And we are definitely going to have to figure out a way to get her comfortable with jumping into the car on her own. But again, not sure if she would be able to do this considering the weakness in her back legs. We'll see... Anybody know of a trainer or behavioralist that has actually worked with a blind dog? I'd love to talk to them.
That's it for now...Gracie sends sloppy kisses to all of you! :o)