Another Day, Another Abscess

***WARNING*** if you are squeamish, don’t read or look at the pictures.

Thor, our Anatolian/Kangal livestock guardian dog, decided to create some drama the past few days.

My son on Saturday found a lump on his neck and showed it to me. It was a firm, rectangular protrusion right on his throat.

It was not giving him issues breathing, eating or drinking, and he was acting like his normal self, I did not feel a need to panic over it at the moment.

On Sunday, it was a bit bigger, but still not giving him issues with his normal daily functions.

I suspected that given its rapid growth factor, that it was most likely an abscess. Well, that’s just dandy.

Now, if it had been any other place on his body, I would have delt with the issue myself. Poke that puppy and let it drain, flush, antibiotics. All the while making sure to keep my face at a more respectable distance so as not to have a repeat of the lip pus attack. Two of those kinds of blow outs in one year, is a bit more than I want to have to smell. Ugh.

By Monday morning, he looked like he had a softball under his chin. And it was more gushy feeling. Don’t you love my oh so descriptive technical vernacular???

Gave the vet a call, brought him down after fighting to get him in the truck. My son came home to help lift him in, which Thor was not thrilled with, and he made a full on run thru the back seat of the truck, hit me with his shoulder, almost put me on my ass, and tried to take off, round 2 succeeded in getting him in.

I had to drop him off since I didn’t have an appointment. Course they had to weigh him, which was a fun production, as he decided to lay his big body down and refuse to move onto the scale. This little bitty girl and I had to shove and scootch his butt onto it.

Any guess’s as to how much he weighs?

Huh? Huh?

Yeah, it’s tough to tell just how big he is from that picture above. I’ll save you the pain of guessing

156.6lbs

Thor is a big boy.

Got the call at 2:30, they had several other more emergent cases come in and Thor got shuffled to the back of the line.

Shortly after 4pm they called to say he was done. Vet said it was a “massive” abscess, deep on his throat, and behind muscle tissue. They had to sedate him and make 2 incisions to drain it. He was still loopy, but I could come get him.

On a side note, I love my vets. They know I have medical background and am not shy about treating, dosing, or taking care of sick/injured animals. They were fine with sending him home with me, knowing he would be in good hands.

I flew down to the office, since they close at 5 and it’s about a 30+ min drive to get there. Chatted with the vet who did the surgery, and she give me all the gory details.

He has a drain thru the abscess so that it continues to drain and heal from the inside out. I’ll take it out myself on Saturday. He is also on antibiotics and pain meds for the next week. Thankfully he is a calm dog and did not try to eat my fingers off this morning as I shoved 4 big pills down his throat. Got them far enough down that he didn’t spit them back out.

Post pill shove ^^^^

His drain, isn’t that pretty?

The sheep are pretty leery of Thor’s fashionable new look, and vet perfume. They are keeping their distance until they figure it all out.

The other vet carried his big butt out to the truck and between the two of us we got him shoved in the back seat. He was pretty floppy still and kept trying to stick his feet out the door. Finally got him settled in and home we came. He walked out of the truck and into the corral under his own power. I am so glad of that because I know I would end up peeing in my pants if I had to try and lift him.

I made several trips outside in the freezing cold (the things we do for our animals) to check on him over night. He did really well, except I think he was getting ticked off at me for waking him up so many times.

He’s up moving around today, got his pills, drank some water, and he will have his food when I get home from work. I suspect I will be holding his bowl inside the cone’O’shame for him to eat. I wonder how long the cone will survive out there. It’s cold enough to make that plastic brittle and one good shot to something will probably shatter it. The other dogs in the pack are doing their best to try and clean him up. Aren’t they just so helpful?? Not.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a separate space to put him in, and if I put him in the barn, he will do his best to dig out under the wall. Bringing him in the house will not work as the house dogs won’t accept him in their space. Thor is being good about walking away from the helpful cleaning tongues.

I am glad I did not attempt to deal with this one myself. It surely was above my pay grade!

Always fun on the farm!!!

Blessed Be!!