I am not a vet but he does seem too young for thrombocytopenia. I don't know if you have Lyme Disease where you are but we have a big problem with it. My dog acted the same way pretty close to the same age and it turned out to be Lyme. The difficult thing about lyme is it can present itself with different symptoms for different animals (not always the same for every dog). It was treated with doxycycline (antibiotic) for 4 weeks and he was fine. Hope they find out what is wrong and everything works out.
Hi and thank you for your answer, very useful indeed.
When your dog caught the disease, did you spot any ticks on his skin?
Our dog seems totally clear of them and he doesn't show any bumps.
thanks
p
I have no clue of what could be wrong, but if you click on Animal Health-General on the right side of this page, you can pose your question to Ask a Vet. Maybe they can give you some idea. Good Luck.
The first thing I thought about when I was reading your post was Lyme Disease. Or some similar Tick-borne disease. It's not as rare as we might think, in both dogs and humans. And the more time spent in long grass, or undergrowth, the more likely to pick up a tick. Can you rmember if he was bitten by a Tick the last few weeks? Or even a month or two ago?
We have a big (increasing) Tick problem where I live. The problem with them is that once they are on the dog it can be hard to capture them before they take hold! However if Ticks are removed as quickly as possible the chance of transmitting disease is slight (within 24 hours, so I heard, but I don't like to rely on that. I examine my dog -and myself- for any Ticks after every walk nowadays!)
Sometimes if there are mysterious symptoms and tests are run, and still nothing seems to work, and the dog is an outdoor dog who runs regularly in heathland or long grass, it can be an idea to check for Lyme.
Hi,
I'm going to speak today to the hospital and ask if they've performed any tests for lyme disease. I think your observations are quite right, especially considering that Pancho is a very outgoing dog. He spends hours every day hunting in the bushes on the hills and we live just facing a huge park with plenty of grass, hills and animals such as foxes, rabbits (which he kills quite often), rats and others.
I think today's chat with the hospital will be crucial as we're also going to be given the results from the lab to determined whether it's a viral problem or not.
Thanks for your help, I'll keep you posted.
cheers
paolo
Hello,
Pancho is back home and he's well!
We had a phone call from the hospital saying that his platelets count is increasing, still very low but increasing. IT was 14 when normal range is 200-500, no it's 44. On Thursday he's going to have new tests to monitor this.
He looks so much better, full of life and very bright. He doesn't shake anymore and he doesn't sleep on his feet anymore either.
They are still waiting for the results to see if it was a tick born infection or something else. They told us they're seeing an increasing number of these cases in the Edinburgh area but they don't know the cause.
He responded well to the antibiotic Ronaxan.
You can imagine how happy we are.
I'd like to thank everybody here, it has been an amazing support in these horrible days. Please don't refrain from contacting me if in need of more info about his condition.
Cheers
Paolo
It's good news that he has improved so much. Let's hope he's going to go from strength to strength now! Jack Russells are incredibly tough little things. I know -I used to have one. Good luck, and big hugs for Pancho!
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm excited, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please, keep us posted......Karla
I'm so glad there is an improvement. Great News.