White gums???? Lethargic???

My mother and I came home and like always Ace was wagging his tail and acting normally happy. Momz gives him a piece of tri tip that was in the fridge and about 10 minutes later him and I are rolling around rough housing like we normally do. He stops playing, which rarely happens, and starts huffing and puffing deeply and walks away from me, which NEVER happens, waddling like a drunk person and walks outside to fall onto on some wet dirt. Gums were white and I rushed him to the vet immediately. They did a chem/12/lytes/cbc in house lab on him, which on top of the "emergency" fee costed me $275.67. On top of this fee was the $30.00 fee for injecting fluids, which gave him that hump back. Color came back in his gums but they couldn't pin point what exactly was the cause of his white gums plus lethargic state. They're saying they want to check liver enzyme in 2-3 weeks, sooner if he isn't feeling well. Could all this be attributed to a spider bite?? Or something along those lines. I feel like I got shafted by the vet but they could do that to me every damn time my dog falls out like that and becomes unresponsive.

 

There is a list of things that could be wrong, anemia,dehydration liver etc etc . Vets are a rip off but some times we have to use them .

 

shit, that happened to my dog before... but i found out he was livin with 2 lungs that werent functioning and were full of fluid. I can't remember what exactly happened to him because this way years ago and im fairly young now...so i was real young then. but we had to put him down cuz the surgery was like 1400$ with low survival rate and hard recovery time. so it was better to do. sad part is he was still trying to play and act normal threw all the pain and not being able to breath.

 

it could be lack of oxygen......sounds it....

 

Appreciate the feedback y'all. It's a little troubling that even after the vet I can't pin point exactly the cause of his episode last night. Venom "Im fairly young now...so i was real young then." Hilarious!!! :cool:

 

if you needed medical attention, i bet you hope whoever your guardian was would pay the bill. :eek:

hell, i spent $1200.00 dollars to save my wife's cat; she woke up at 3 am and was 6 mos pregnant and her cat was having seizures on the floor.

one exploratory surgery and 4 biopsies later (kidney, liver, pancreas, stomach), all's they could tell me was she had chronic feline pancreatitis (which has no real known cause or cure). the damn cat spent 10 days there, 6 of them on an IV, then i syringe fed that cat three times a day for three weeks until she had strength to move around and eat herself. thank god she still used the litter while she was sick.

and at the end of it all, i told the wife i wasn't going to spend over a grand on a cat when i wanted a new driveway so her cat could continue to sit in our room all day and hide from the dogs.

my mother-in-law is now the proud owner of a $1200.00 dollar cat.

moral of the story - you got the animal, you owe it at least to keep it healthy.....if you can't afford a vet bill, put your pet down.

but trust me, i know the aggravation of them not being able to tell you what was wrong.

hell, i've got three dogs ages 1, 3, 7, and all of them combined to date with all vaccinations and spay/neuters, and the food (innova for over 2 years, canidae before that) they still haven't cost my wallet as much as the cat did.......:rolleyes:

 

Ordinarily when you see pale gums the first thing I think of is blood, But with him wheezing and such I would be inclined to think something is wrong with the lungs or circulatory system.

If the dog was bitten by a spider or snake or that there is a very strong chance this could be the culprit depending on what kind of insect or that bit him, But you would see a bite and the area would be swollen.

Did you see any bites or that on him?

 

There weren't any swollen bumps or bites on him at all. He's behaving normal now, but it was so WEIRD. No one at the vet had any conclusive answers and that troubles me even more.

 

Trust me I have no problem with paying for any treatment. That is my responsibility for sure, but I have felt shafted at this particular vet office before and felt especially shafted last night during this whole ordeal. A lot of people say that in their review of this place, but it was the first vet he'd ever seen and there was chemistry for him there I guess. I will find a new vet soon anyway. Thats a crazy story about that cat, Im glad everything worked out well!

 

Okay now my boy is vomiting. Three times in 2 hours. First time was this brown matter the next two times seemed to be bile or some sort of liquid. He digs a lot and chomps at the dirt. Don't know if that coud be the reason for all this. I told the vet this last night, but she disregarded the notion that his biting up dirt could be the reason for this. WTF??!! :confused:

 

i know how you feel man ..... one of my dogs had diahrea for like 6 months and in that time span i took her to the vet 9 times and spent almost 1500 bucks(running test andmeds) and they still couldnt figure out the problem..... for some reason antibiotics would make the stool harden up..... i hope you figure out whats going on . how is he acting ? is he still eating like normal?

 

Have the vet check him for internal bleeding, I would get him over to another vet as quick as you could. They can communicate with the original vet you took him to and see what they checked him for and ruled out so you won't have to pay again.

 

He's acting normal just vomiting now

 

In your opinion could it be the food? He eats about a pound of either liver or chicken neck bones a day. I would love to stay away from "dog food" because he doesn't eat it anyway.

 

Is that all he eats?

I don't feed raw or know a whole awful lot about it so I may be off on this, But the dog is eating a pound of bones each and every day? If so I would imagine that would be hard on the system after a while and may cause some throwing up. I would figure needing to digest all those bones would be hard to do even for a dog and in turn the dog may build excess stomach acid which may cause the dog to throw up and it may also cause a hole in the stomach lining from the acid which could account for the pale gums due to blood loss. There are others here though that know a way of a lot more than me when it comes to the raw diet, I would still take him to a different vet and make sure that he doesn't have internal bleeding someplace. Pale gums 9 times out of 10 is tied back to blood loss one way or another, If he is bleeding in the stomach or that it would also explain him vomiting and losing energy.

I honestly can't say if the diet would cause this or not though because I honestly don't know enough about the raw diet.

Do you notice any blood in the stool or that?

 

My dog went through a period of every time he would exert even a little bit of energy, he would start huffing and panting like he ran 10 miles and his gums would turn pale white. Turns out he had a mild heart murmur and poor circulation...

 

Let me get this straight. You only feed your dog bones and a pound of liver a day!? Thats not a raw diet! Please do some research on raw before you go making up your own concoctions. Are you trying to kill your dog?
Feeding liver every once in a while is ok, but not a lb a day. Liver contains large amounts of vitamin A which is fat soluble, which means it stays in the fat cells and accumulates. Too much can be toxic! Stop giving your dog liver and bones..and tell your vet what you have been feeding. I cant believe they didnt even ask?

 

Agree with Scratchin,that much liver will definitely be doing your dog harm,I probably don't even feed a pound of liver in a month.Drop the raw till you know what you're doing and start feeding a quality kibble asap!

 

I hope he is ok. It could be a sign of anemia, internal bleeding, cancer, poisoning, so many other things. I'd keep a really close eye on the dog.

I think you got off cheap at the vet, but it sounds like they also did very minimal testing.

I hope your dog recovers asap.

 

My dogue de bordeaux had a sudden onset of white gums and lethargy took him to the emergency vet to find out that he had a ruptured tumor which lead to internal bleeding. He passed the next day after surgery. Don't think this is happening here but I wouldn't take it too lightly. I agree with Patch, sounds like they didn't do extensive testing/searching to figure out what is going on.