Pearl update

Poor Pearl! After her most recent skin flare up which happened a few days ago, Caroline took her to see Dr Huang down the road. She managed to find a dead demodex mite. They live deep in the hair follicle and are difficult to find. Pearl is on different medication now, and will have to receive more meds for months to come. At the moment she is very hot and I suspect she is runnung a fever. She is tearing her skin up because it is so itchy, scratching and biting, and I think caroline will put a big, cone collar on her today. Poor girl...she's worn her front teeth down through years of scratching her itches. Apparently getting her neutered will also help with the symptoms, as they are affected by her hormones (can't think why her previous owners didn't do this, she must have been a very sick puppy) Her skin is all lumpy, red and inflamed with an angry rash all over her body. What fur she does have is falling out....she looks a sorry sight. JoAnne, Caroline and I went shopping last night and bought her a special oil with omega 3 and omega 6 in it, made from salmon. Hopefully this will help her skin and immune system. Unfortunately demodex mange is hereditary so all the pups have it as well. Dr Huang has told me to feed them healthily and make them fat! The prospective adopters have been notified, and I hope they still want the puppies as 2 were supposed to be taken this weekend. What this will mean for the adopters is 2 years worth of meds for the new pups. Then if their immune system is ok (hopefully their dad was a big strong tu-go!) they should be fine until old age. But it is common to put dogs with demodex to sleep, and they definatly should not be bred from. Caroline has been very tired recently as the puppies are very mobile and noisy. They can be great fun, but we have to play puppy toilet land mine games all the time! by Honey