My Fourth Child....

Is Roscoe. He just has never ending issues. Or so it seems. He has battled chronic ear infections, won the war against fleas and endured several 3AM bouts of diarrhea! Now, you know why I call him the fourth child. It's always something with this boy! None-the-less he is an awesome dog! He's so mellow, loving, loyal, playful and huge. He is about twice the size of our old neighbor's Labrador Retriever! Of course they had a female. lol.
never had fleas before. These cats are constantly in my backyard and I am very tempted to take my mom's advice. Her advice was to throw catnip in the neighbor's yard. It isn't the nicest, or even the right thing to do, but at least it would be funny, right? Well just recently Roscoe contracted fleas from the neighbors' wandering cats, I'm assuming. I think I am going to plant some lavender. I read somewhere that cats don't like lavender and it is a natural feline repellent.
Okay, so back to the Rosc as I like to affectionately call him. :o) After we won the war against the fleas, our poor Roscoe started Alopecia or hair loss in layman's terms. At first I thought, oh, its just from where he was itching when he had fleas. Well, then the hair loss spread. The backs of his hind legs are almost bare and he has a few spots on his back and one big bald spot on his tail. His bald spot on his tale is most likely due to an allergic reaction to fleas. I started to get really concerned once his hair loss seemed more widespread. He also got another ear infection. This time only in one ear. And then over the last week I've started noticing chunks, not flakes, but chunks of dandruff all over his back. He is in awful shape. We've never had such a problematic dog before! If it isn't one thing it's another. He's lucky I love him!
So, off to the vet we went. Our appointment was at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. We didn't leave until 4! I think that was our longest visit in history. lol. He had an impression done of his dandruff chunks, an impression of his belly where he had red bumps, a skin scrape of his tail, a smear from his ear and blood drawn from both front legs. He got the works to say the least. All of the impressions, scrape and smears were ready on the spot. He has a yeast infection in his ear. No surprise there. That's the story of his life. We treat and we treat until we are out of meds, but yet the yeast always seems to come right back again. He has some yeast spots on his belly along with a little fungal matter. The dandruff showed no fungus or yeast. His scrape showed no mites and mange was ruled out. We have to wait until next week for his blood test results.
The vet says one of two things is causing all of his problems. Its either allergies or it is hyperthyroidism. His symptoms all fit the hormone disorder, except for his itching. He has begun to consume large quantities of water and has had a very small increase in appetite. Enough to make him gain about 6 pounds since his last visit. He urinates frequently and he literally takes about a minute to finish peeing! If the tests come back positive he will be give hormones. If they come back negative, we start from scratch and we go on an allergy hunt!
In the meantime Roscoe is on antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication, and he has spray for his belly and feet. Wish us luck with this whole process and hope that our Roscoe gets better!!

She LOVES her "Daw-Daw" LOL