Vet trips are typically on a Monday but as this week we have something else happening on Monday, 3 problems went to vet on Saturday !

Problems, well no, just doggies in need of some specialist attention and what better place to take a dog than to a Veterinarian Clinic.

Alice was first on the table, she is showing some hair loss around the face and we think it is mange. Oops! The vet thinks it is sarcoptic mange but caught at an early stage thankfully.

The test for this is to rub the dogs ears, a bit like the motion of when you hand wash your undies with 2 hands and scrub the material together against itself.

The result is that the dog starts wagging it’s tail and twitching & shaking it’s back legs. Of course if you are washing your undies, the result is not quite the same.

Alice will need an intensive dose of Ivomec subcutaneously.

Betsy was next to be seen, she had a wonderful opportunity yesterday, someone looked at her, fell in love with her (who couldn’t!) and she nearly found a new home, with people that visited the Care for Dogs shelter in Hang Dong, looking to adopt a dog.

But sadly, when they saw a bald patch on her back, they went off the idea and chose another dog.

Betsy came to the shelter from Hua Hin last year, when the Head Rock Dogs facility was shut down by the local authority. Betsy we found had suffered with a fungal infection and we treated her immediately and the condition resolved.

Indeed today the vet confirmed by skin tests, that Betsy is clear of fungus and indeed any other skin condition such as mange or bacteria infection, Betsy it turns out is healthy, we were not surprised but none the less, happy for second opinions.

Treatment of fungal infections requires the use of a medicine called Ketakonazol and being aware of possible impact on liver & kidney functions after extended use of this, today we asked the vet to test Betsy’s blood too. Great news, the treatment for fungus did not cause another problem, her liver & kidney’s are working just fine.

Last up on the table was Suki.

Suki was here a couple of weeks ago, suffering with a small wound to one of her pads and a nail problem. At that time, the vet cleaned the wound, trimmed the nail & dressed the foot along with prescribing antibiotics to treat a mild infection.

It is no secret at the shelter that Suki is very aloof and difficult to handle, let alone catch. As much as we try, sometimes she would evade capture and therefore her wound would not be dressed that day.

Yesterday, on an occasion we could catch her, what they found when cleaning & redressing her foot was very upsetting. Maggots.

These little creatures had been working away on the dying flesh of her pad, something called Necrosis and now her nail was completely gone and the pad area very swollen.

Today the vet removed the maggots and suggested we restrain Suki in a cage or confined area until her foot is better. Why hadn’t we thought of that previously? With 115 dogs in a shelter and a belief that ‘you can help every dog’ sometimes the former complicates the latter.