So I took Preacher into the vet this afternoon--mixed news from the vet.
I was playing with Preacher's ear last night and noticed what I thought was a matt. When I went to clip it off, I discovered a matt alright, but the fur was also covering a cyst or abcess of some sort. The cyst broke today just before we saw the vet. Dr. Kim thinks that it has been there for quite awhile and probably started with a small tear or rubbing on something. Preacher often uses his ears to navigate--almost like a cat uses their whiskers. So I suppose it's possible that he had a small cut and I never noticed and of course Preacher never told me.
Some of the swelling in his leg is just his old joints acting up, but he also had a small puncture wound. It's not infected yet and hopefully it was caught early enough to prevent an abcess. I have no idea how that happened. He hasn't been involved in any tussles for a very long time.
He's on Cephalexan for two weeks and I have to clean his ear and put some gunky cream on it regularly. Once he's feeling a bit better, he will be starting a course of Meloxicam for the arthritis. I already have that at home since Goldie is on it for the rest of her life.
Preacher has a few other things starting to go wrong as I guess will happen with an old dog. His heart rate is very slow. Kim says he's either the most relaxed dog in history or it's the early stages of heart failure. I say it's a bit of both. Preacher has always been very laid-back. Kim said if he had been a younger, healthier dog he would have put him under to clean his ear out, but he didn't think that Preacher would handle the GA very well and there was a strong possibility he wouldn't have woken up. He's also showing some signs of senility--forgets where he is in the house, bonking into more things.
Preacher is the most stoic dog ever. Clearly that ear thing hurt and having his leg shaved couldn't have been terribly pleasant, but all he did was turn and look at Kim. He never yelped, snarled, nothing. I can't imagine the kind of pain he would have to be in to actually show it!
Kim agreed that Preacher is definately failing, but thinks that we can keep him comfortable and with a good quality of life for a while yet. :)
