My gigantic mouth sore is still gigantic but at least it doesn't hurt anymore. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling well over the last few days. I think I'm getting a cold and I've felt quite weak and tired. This post should have come on Wednesday evening and the fact that it didn't means that the red carpet post will also be delayed.
On Wednesday afternoon I took Gozer to a doggie dermatologist in Guelph. We knew she had some yeast problems and food allergies but we also wanted to know more about her allergies. We suspected that she had environmental allergies as well as the others and we wanted to know if that was true and what we could do about it.
It was very overwhelming. Gozer didn't like being there; once we got into the exam room and the technician entered, she completely emptied her bladder all over the floor. I've never seen her break her housetraining before. She must have been so, so scared.
The doctor confirmed that Gozer has yeast problems (by taking a piece of scotch tape, using it on her paws, and then looking at it under the microscope). As for the environmental allergies, we had two choices: allergy testing to know what she's allergic to and then giving her immunotherapy (allergy shots), or giving her something to block the allergic reaction.
I decided that she should have the testing. She was sedated and it was hard to watch her go through that; she fought it and shook and shook and shook and shook, and she had trouble coming out of it afterwards. When we got home, she was so sleepy and didn't eat or go for a walk until much later in the evening. She was fine by the next day.
She's definitely got some environmental allergies - to maple, oak, timothy grass, alfalfa, cocklebur, pigweed, ragweed, dock (a very strong reaction here), storage mites, yeast (but she's not hypersensitive to it), fleas, and mosquitos. The trees, grasses, and weeds allergans will all go into Gozer's allergy shots. We've ordered the shots and will be giving them to her in a very specific dosing schedule. These shots will take her about eight to twelve months to work, if they work at all. If they don't work, then we'll give her the pills (actually a liquid because the pills might upset her tummy, and she has a sensitive tummy) to block the allergic reaction.
For the yeast infection, we had three treatment choices: frequent bathing with a special shampoo (but Gozer really hates baths), one drug (but it can rarely cause cataracts and Gozer already has one), or another drug that doesn't cause cataracts. We're going to give her the drug that doesn't cause cataracts. This is probably something that we'll need to give hr regularly, although if it starts to work we'll try to decrease the dose.
Right now we're going to leave the food allergies alone because even though she doesn't like her food, she's ok with it and we didn't want to do too much at once. When we decide to address this component, we'll put her on an exclusion diet, giving her either a Royal Canin Vegetarian diet or cooking for her with one protein and one carbohydrate. Once she's ok with that, we'll start slooooowly adding new proteins or carbohydrates.
Our poor Gozer. There's so much wrong with her.
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