Dog Interrupted

When Callaway was a year and a half old, he developed some sort of a skin problem. It looked like a rash in various patches across his body. The patches moved, but Callaway always licked them. After so many days of licking, the rash turned into raw wounds that would not heal no matter how much triple antibiotic ointment or hydrocortisone we put on them.

After several weeks of attempting home treatment, we took Callaway to the vet. The doctor did a skin scrape, but could find nothing obvious wrong with him. She decided to treat the symptoms and prescribed steroids, fish oil, antibiotics and bi-weekly baths with a special shampoo. That combination worked great and got rid of everything. Unfortunately, several weeks after finishing the meds, the skin problems cropped up again. We called the doctor and she refilled his medication.

We went through this routine once more, before the rash stopped coming back. We went months without any problems. Come this fall, it all came back. We have been doing the same thing over and over again. The rash goes away with treatment, but quickly returns.

This Christmas, we noticed Callaway was developing a lump on his back. It has been there for months, but was small so we just thought it was another scab from his rash. In a matter of weeks, the lump tripled in size. We were concerned, so we quickly scheduled an appointment at the vet to assess this new problem.

Callaway spent all day Tuesday at the vet while we were at work so he could get checked. The doctor recommended removing the mass and doing a biopsy. 1) So she could determine that all of the mass had been removed, 2) So we could find out if this was a malignant cancer that we needed to search for elsewhere on his body. Since he was already going to be sedated, she also recommended doing biopsies on his skin to see if we can figure out exactly what is causing all his discomfort.

It wasn't a pretty day for our bank account, but Callaway is getting the help he needs! He stayed over night at the vet and he had his procedure Wednesday morning. He spent the day resting in the kennel and Travis picked him up after work. Because Callaway already has a reputation as a licker, we were set with an e-collar to prevent him from infecting any of his biopsy sites.

He is so pitiful right now. Poor guy. Last night I took him outside to go potty. He got a little overzealous and tried to run up our back stairs like he always done. That stopped after the first step. I'm pretty sure the stitches pulled on at least one of the three biopsies on his belly. I think we got lucky and the site of the mass is unreachable for him to lick.

=(