| 1340Singapore
Pomeranian smelly body skin, acral lick granuloma, pet health
and welfare educational for animal lovers, excerpts from The Glamorous Vets,
Singapore, sponsored by AsiaHomes Internet. A Christmas Reprieve for a Pomeranian with a bad body smell Mrs Wong whipped out the mobile phone from her handbag and said to her teenaged daughter recovering from her Christmas eve party : "Sweetie pie, the vet recommends that Lucky be put to sleep." It was a cloudy Christmas morning and nobody should be working. Mr and Mrs Wong from Fifth Avenue, an exclusive residential enclave, brought in a twelve-year-old Pomeranian for a decision. This was the first time visit. Mr Wong was unkempt and in shorts and T-shirt on this public holiday. However, Mrs Wong was dressed in an immaculate beige silk designer dress and sporting the latest permed half-height short hair style associated with "tai tais" or ladies of wealth and leisure in Singapore. She had complained that the dog became smelly the next day after bathing for the past few weeks. She just could not tolerate the smell anymore as it nauseated her. Therefore, a vet must recommend euthanasia. 
This was a good looking Pomeranian even at this old age. It still
retained its thick orange-colour coat of hair and excellent skin which
would put younger dogs to shame. It had been licking its left paw
which had become brown and glossy from the dripping saliva. There
was an interdigital cyst in this paw and it irritated the dog so much that
it spent hours licking it off. "No, no" I told Mrs Wong. "I did not just recommend euthanasia. You have an option to treat the dog for the bad smell which I suspect would be from the periodontal disease in the mouth. Antibiotics and dental scaling and extraction of the decayed teeth would have solved this smelly problem. The bad smell would be due to the dog's saliva being spread onto its left front paw and the body. You will have to decide." Mrs Wong left the consultation room to go outside to talk to her daughter as the mobile phone was not giving a clear reception indoors. "What did your two daughters say?" I asked Mrs Wong as she returned to the consultation room. "They were saying that they were still asleep and it is Christmas Day and not the day to put the dog to sleep," Mrs Wong laughed. The Pomeranian had a good bath and did not have the body odour complained by Mrs Wong. I opened the dog's mouth. There was halitosis or bad breath but not as bad as others. I auscultated the heart to check whether it had heart disease and would be able to take the general anaesthesia necessary for its dental surgery later. "The dog's heart is still normal, unlike many of its peers," I say. "It can live longer than twelve years. Some small breeds do live up to twenty years. Take the antibiotics for ten days to clear all bacterial infections of the mouth. Make an appointment for dental scaling and extraction on the tenth day. The smell must be due to the saliva being spread onto the left front paw which has an acral lick granuloma. It is a raw hairless ulcerated area on the skin that is licked continuously. I can guarantee that the dog will not be smelly after taking the antibiotics for ten days but the smell will return later. You have ten days to decide whether to put the dog to sleep or not." "Give me antibiotics for twenty days," said Mrs Wong. "The children will say it is New Year's Day and it will not be the right time for euthanasia." I remember this 2000 Christmas for the reprieve from a lethal injection of a handsome Pomeranian given by two party-crazy but kind teenaged girls. |