I am telling this story today, in hopes that this information will help other people to check their dogs or cats on a regular basis.

I am not sure where to begin; it’s been a very tense couple of weeks around here, between Norman and Abby.  Last week we took Norman to the vet, as he was having trouble walking.  He was limping on his front left leg, and it kept getting worse and worse.  We looked at his paw, his leg, his shoulder, and we could not see anything wrong, and so we decided to take him to the vet to see what was wrong with him.  Well, he has arthritis in his shoulder, as well as a fatty tumor on this shoulder.  He is on some pain meds now, to help with the discomfort and to help him get around a little bit better.  Well, the vet wanted to see him back in a week for a recheck, and we thought we would take Abby with us, as she is due for her rabies shot and exam.  During the exam, they found out that Abby had a temp of 105.5, the normal temp for a dog is 101.8 to 102.5, so they were very concerned about Abby, and would not do the shot until her temp came down.  Told us to take her home and watch her.

 George had given Abby and Maggie a bath that morning, so the vet thought that maybe between the warm bath and the car ride that maybe that was the reason for the temp.  So we took them home and Abby was not getting any better, but did not seem to be getting worse either, except that, all of a sudden Abby was having trouble walking on her left back leg. She would get up, and could hardly walk on that back leg, but the more she moved the better it got. It was very strange. I kept feeling her hips and legs, and did not feel anything out of the ordinary. We kept an eye on her all night, and she seemed the same.  Well, morning came, and she was not good, she looked like death warmed over, so we rushed her to the vet, her temp was 106.2, so they rushed her in the back, and did the cool water treatment on her, under her skin to bring her temp back down quickly.  The vet came in and talked to us about what was going on, and we all decided that she needed blood work.  What the blood workup indicated was, that a tick had bitten her.  We do not have any pine trees in or near our yard, so this was a real shock to us.  The vet told us that there have been, quite a few cases of tick bites in this area lately.  I hope this information will help many people to check there dogs and cats often, and look for any signs of fever, vomiting, joints that are sore, or any other signs that are not normal for your pet.

Abby is doing much better now, her temp is back to normal, and she is on antibiotics every 12 hrs, and an anti-inflammatory for her back leg.  She is still breathing very heavy, but better than she was yesterday morning by far.  I called the vet this morning, and if she is not breathing better by tomorrow, I need to get her back in, as it has not been a full 24 hrs yet.  He long term prognoses is very good, and we feel very lucky we got her to the vet when we did, or things could have turned out very different, and yes I was a flipping wreck!!!!  Continued