Help - worried about something on my dog

[swallowedAfly]

Hello.

I walk my one year old lab in the countryside a lot so it's not unusual for her to get a bit muddy. The other day i noticed she had a patch of something under where her ear hangs down and assumed it was a bit of mud from a full on walk we'd had the day before that she'd cleaned up from everywhere else. I remember saying you need a bath my love but being really busy with cooking for family coming over and sorting the house so i thought no more of it

last night i noticed it again properly and it had changed. I examined it and i don't know what it is - the fur is matted together and there is a bit of a mass of something, i sort of pinched the area to make it stand out and there appears to be some kind of sticky residue down in between the hair. It actually made me feel quite sick and i'm not generally a squeamish person.

what on earth is it? i have to take ds to school this morning and then i can phone and try and arrange to go in to see the vet with her. i think it also smells a bit - which i assumed was from the walk but am now worrying is this thing that smells. it's not mange or something is it?

really worried and feeling bad that i ignored it for a couple of days and put it down to dirt. really close to the dog and she's with me all the time - i feel bad i didn't realise it was something more and examine it properly but i was all caught up in being busy and it was under where her ear hangs down (labrador) so it wasn't noticeable. also she's just been in season so i was tending to focus more on her nether regions and behaviour than something on her skin.

any ideas would be great - i'm totally clueless as to what it is unless she had a little absess there and it burst or something?

thanks martyr. yes she does definitely need to earn some good girls to pull her self esteem back up this morning because she poo'd and wee'd on the kitchen floor after being left downstairs and had to watch my face and body language as i cleaned it up. face and body language is enough for her, she's not silly and very poe faced again

so out of character.

would have loved to go down this morning and give her lots of attention, good girl for having stayed downstairs and do some training and rewards and lots of fuss so she knew it was all still good but the giant poos on the floor got in the way of it.

i've come upstairs to drink my coffee and moan to you

i know it sounds like protest behaviour - as in i left her downstairs so she made a mess but i don't think it is. it's not really her nature (unless you count odd times of chewing whilst i was out but think that was more self comforting/boredom than protest and she was younger). could all be related to her season i guess.

She sounds as though she might not be 100% to be honest.

If she's coping with the hormonal issues that usually follow a season and a gammy ear - which may or may not be infected and may or may not be causing her discomfort, it's not altogether surprising she's not behaving as normal. She may also have a temperature because of it.

At 1, she's still very young and a season does odd things to some dogs. One of mine was so very clingy during her first season (she was only 8 or so months old though) - and even whimpered with discomfort at the beginning of it. She got deeply distressed if she had to be left somewhere without me. She just didn't like it.

Did you manage to bathe away the gunk yesterday?

managed to get a good start on breaking down the 'crusting' daisy. yes she's been very clingy in the build up to and through her season.

i'm calmer now. i suspect that i've taken several unrelated things and rolled them into one big concern. some of it is hormones and will pass and the toileting more than likely is connected to that and i can handle it. the cut is a separate issue and the scratching is a separate issue. i was rolling them together into one big drama.

we can't get to the vets. ds is not well and it's freezing and two bus journeys away. i only stayed with that vet because i happened to go their first but there is one that is nearer and a far more pleasant walk and i'm going to go there tomorrow when ds is back at school.

still bathing cut and calming down now i've reminded myself there's more than one thing going on and if they were going on separately i wouldn't be worried iyswim.

Sounds yucky. I would snip as much hair off as you possibly can. If you end up at the vet, they'll only shave it anyway. If my dog cuts himself, I cut a patch off to help the healing. Scab stuck in hair won't help at all. I think a silly bald patch is better than a wound going nasty.

Keep at it with sturdy kitchen roll or a new j-cloth and warm salty water until you get the crustiness off. Like someone else said, it needs doing and if it gets done at the vets, you'll just be paying them to do it.

thanks virgo i have jay cloths - will give them a go and brave really going at it this time - will snip hair away if i safely can too.

hi - just letting everyone know that my dog is much better. whatever it was has shrunk and shrunk exposing white skin at the edges as it heals and is basically now just little bits of loose scabiness holding on to the base of the hair which i'm getting rid of

massive overeactions on my part. buy hey ho.

i've continued with operation get my bed back and it is going well. she sleeps downstairs in the hall or on the floor in the corner of my room if i forget to wedge the door shut though i did wake up to find myself sandwiched between dog and cat the other morning.

her old bed is stinky and bleurgh so i've invested in a waterproof, wipeable super expensive delux thing that should be on its way.

she had a couple more incontinency incidents but touch wood those are behind us now and were just heat related.