I highly recommend checking out your local community theater groups.  Jason and I went last night, and it was great.  The food was okay, but watching our southern friends try to pull of a British accent was priceless.

Priceless.

Bulldog blues

So, Lulu, she's been big on the vet lately.  Not that she's really into it, but she's had to go several times in the past 2 months. 

As soon as we got her home, she broke out with some kind of rash on her belly.  Got it fixed up with a steroid shot and an antibiotic shot.  Then in October, she started to break out in hives and developed a urinary tract infection.  More steroids and antibiotics.  Hives cleared up most of the way, and as soon as she went off the antibiotics they came back again.  A short course of steroids and antibiotics with some improvement, and the knowledge that she probably has some allergies that needed diagnosed.  Her skin didn't improve a whole lot that time.

So, we did the allergy testing and found out she was allergic to some of the things in her food as well as some grasses, trees and weeds, several molds, and dust mites.  Good, well now we know what to attack... with doggy allergy shots.  First round of allergy shots lasted 3 injections and she had a reaction to them.  The ramp up with fast and hard, and she just didn't tolerate it well.  So, a week off and back onto them with a slower ramp up.

But all this time, she's looking worse.  Her hair is falling out and she's getting bald spots in addition to general thinning.  The skin around her eyes and mouth have turned a ruddy pink.  And her knuckles are balding.  KNUCKLES.  The allergy medicine really wasn't helping her much.

Then on Tuesday at doggy daycare, Speedy (who I love) nipped Lulu in the eye.  It looked like he just got her lower lid, so I wasn't too worried.  But it didn't look so good Wednesday morning, so I took her into the vet to have it checked.  I saw the 3rd vet in the practice.  He's never seen Lulu before.  He checked her eye, declared it to be fine, then asked what the hell was going on with her skin.  We went over the history: rashes, steroids, antibiotics, mange checks, allergies, allergy shots, scaled back allergy shots.  Seriously?  What else can be wrong with this poor little dog?

He asked me if he can scrape her to check for mange.  Again.  The third time.  Okay, if you think it might give you more information, go ahead.  I told him I was committed to staying the course of recommended treatment, but I wasn't sure we were fully on course yet.

He literally scraped her face with a razor to make it bleed.  It's how you check for the mites.  Lo and behold, there it was.  A demodex mite.  My girl has an inherited type of mange.  It's not transmittable dog-dog except at birth, and isn't contagious to humans.  But it's causing her a world of trouble.  He put  her on antibiotic therapy, a yeast medication, and a bath/dip combo.  He told me to come back after a month of this treatment for a check-in so he could make any changes in her treatment plan, and assured me that she would be doing much better. 

Finally, I feel like we might have all pieces of the puzzle.

I want a baby cow. Seriously.