Puppy with meningitis

[AGoodPirate]

Our seven month old whippet is at the vet on a drip, his temperature is too high to try steroids, he's not responding to the four different antibiotics they've had him on...
I'm really worried.

Just wondered if there was anyone out there with a story of hope? He has been ill since boxing day.
:(

Or a story of not hope I suppose. So I know what to expect.

So sorry to hear this, I didn't even know that dogs could get meningitis. He's in the best place. Did the vet say if they have ever treated dogs before with it and the outcome?

She said whippets can be prone to it. But I'm not sure if they've had a case before, or how common it is.
I was too upset to ask the things I should have done this morning when I spoke to her.

Keep us posted, I hope he is ok. I worked with greyhounds for years and never heard of a case of it, not whippets I know but similar. As the vet says whippets are prone they must know the best course of action to take so fingers crossed for you and him.

Meningitis can occur in dogs though can have a variety of causes viral, bacterial and immune mediated. Identifying the cause is the most important thing and MRI scans and or CSF taps are really needed.
Prognosis depends on cause and individual response to treatment.

Try not to give up hope OP, you need to find out what type of meningitis it is. My portie had Aseptic (Autoimmune) meningitis at about that age. It was absolutely terrifying as he was really really poorly, had to have a spinal tap to identify that it was definitely meningitis (this took 24 hours for results) and then we had to continue to wait to find out what type - in that time he deteriorated further (canine equivalent of ICU, extremely high temp, on huge quantities of painkillers etc) and the vets had to make a judgement call and give him steroids in the hope that we were dealing with the steroid responsive strain rather than bacterial/viral. Thankfully we were right as otherwise that would have potentially made him worse, but they actually made an improvement very quickly and now about 3 months on we are gradually reducing his steroid dose and he's absolutely on the mend. He will have been on steroids 6 months eventually but a very low dose by the end and shouldn't cause him any long term problems.
We read so many horror stories about meningitis, but if you can get a diagnosis of aseptic meningitis there is a much better outlook and that is apparently by far the most common canine form.
Good luck - do let us know how he gets on?