Blind Dog:  Carlos
Breed:  Alaskan Malamute/ Husky cross
Age: 10-12 years old

I've only had Carlos for a year.  Around March 8th he was brought to a veterinary clinic that I was volunteering at. They found him wandering around the ghetto part of Tampa and didn't want to send him to Animal Services. He was signed over by a man named Carlos, whom he was immediately named after due to lack of creativity.  With no microchip and after advertising him for 10 days no one came for him.  The vet clinic's owner decided that the "best thing for an old, blind dog is to send him to animal services"  where he would be promptly euthanized due to his condition. I asked them to give me a few hours to find a rescue to take him. I'd foster him if I had to (I've been fostering for local rescue organizations for 9 years).

  On day 11, the day I brought him home, we discovered double ear infection so bad that there's no way it appeared over night (or in 10 days). He also had a bad cough which sounded like kennel cough so  my personal veterinarian put him on Doxycycline which seemed to help for a little while.

 On day 13 I got a job working at another vet clinic. The technicians at this clinic offered to help me shave down his matted coat. It took us 4 hours. Underneath the coat we found multiple bite wounds. He screamed at us if we tried to look at them closely and he wasn't approved for anesthesia without risk of killing him. So he underwent heavy-duty antibiotics and the wounds healed.  One wound on his rump never healed right, one day, the skin sloughed off. He has a huge ugly scar there now. We tested him for heartworms using what they call a snap-test. It's a quick, 5 minute test that is usually very reliable in dogs that have heartworms. He tested negative. Carlos got all of his vaccines and things were looking good for him. Carlos was almost ready for adoption.

On day 15 the rescue decided that he had glaucoma without even seeing him yet and told me to have him euthanized. Now I had to take care of him without hope of getting him adopted any time soon.  I took him to Dr. Wolf, a veterinary ophthalmologist here in Tampa who said that he only had cataracts and dry eye. His eyes have shrunken, but now with ointment that keeps his eyes moist for 24 hours he looks much better.

One month later, Carlos still coughed. I couldn't figure out why the antibiotics didn't help. The cough was happening at night time or when Carlos was very active.  I assumed it was an allergy and we would try to wait out the allergy season and see if it got better on its own.  How wrong I was.

In July, 2012 We had radiographs (x-rays) taken of Carlos' chest.  His heart was the shape of a D. Which is abnormal and generally points to heartworm disease.  However, Carlos also had clusters of yucky nodule-like things showing up on his lungs. My boss said it was either a bacterial infection, or lung cancer. Oh how much I hate the C-word! (I have a non-blind dog, who has cancer). I was told if Carlos has cancer then he'd be better off euthanized at his age.  My boss said instead of jumping the gun, to send the radiographs out to a specialist who reads films for a living. So we sent the radiographs to New Jersey and the findings came back. Carlos was heartworm positive or had permanent damage from previous heartworm infestation.

The "old fashioned" way of looking for heartworm, is really just an alternative way to check.  I personally suggest that heartworms are checked for in all 3 ways- send blood out to a lab through your vet, check with a snap-test, or look under the slide yourself if you know what to look for (or have your vet look).  I didn't know what to look for, but my boss did.  Sure enough you can see the microfilaria (heartworm larvae) swimming through his blood cells under the microscope.  What a relief, right?  I have an old dog, that's blind, with no cancer. It's only heartworm.

Heartworm disease kills.  Treating heartworm disease can also kill. Here's what happens:  You have heartworms in the dogs circulatory system- that's right, they don't stay just in the heart (side-note: cats can get heartworms, and very rarely so can humans).  There's controversy of how to properly treat heartworm victims (because that's what they are- victims, this can be prevented, and they aren't the ones who can prevent it).  Veterinarians are always fencing whether to do "fast-kill" or "slow-kill" or a combination of both.

 Fast-kill means there are usually three injections of the heartworm pesticide (called Immiticide) into the dog's body.  This quickly kills the worms and gives the worms less time to inflict permanent damage on the heart and lungs. The problem with this mass-killing of heartworms is that the worms now dead bodies have no where to go. The dog's body has to break the worm's bodies down. Common problems with fast kill include clots of the lung, blood vessels, and lung hemorrhage. The injections are painful, the injection itself can be dangerous to the dog's health, and the dead worms can be dangerous to the dog's health.

I opted to do slow-kill on Carlos. Slow-kill includes giving doxycyline for secondary bacteria and heartguard  preventative monthly. The preventative (ivermectin) will kill the larvae and young heartworm. The adult heartworm then live their lifespan and eventually die.  It can take up to 30 months to have an animal heartworm free with slow-kill. However, it's not as harsh on their system and due to age, his already bad lungs, etc, the veterinarians agreed that his chances of surviving fast-kill were slim.  [The lungs aren't part of the circulatory system. They are a part of the respiratory system. Heartworms have a secondary-killer. The Wolbachia pipientis bacteria is associated with heartworms. (This is why Carlos was coughing so much)]

In October 2012, Carlos met with the founder of a local pet-therapy group. He passed his evaluation and became a therapy dog. Visiting primarily nursing homes and occasionally a children's home.  We have school-visits coming up this year that we are excited about.

In September 2012 Carlos became acutely paretic. He could no longer use his back legs and couldn't walk. We couldn't move him without him yelping out in pain. I had the neurologist look at video's of his behavior and in-home examination. She concluded as I had that he had herniated a disc in his vertebrae.. Imagine a jelly filled doughnut. The doughnut is surrounded by a small hard container. Inside the container with the jelly doughnut is a piece of string. Then imagine that jelly filled doughnut ruptures and the jelly pushes out onto the string.  That is what was happening to Carlos' spinal cord.  The disc material pushed onto his spinal cord like the jelly onto the string. (Why you would have a doughnut and a string in a hard container? who knows.) Carlos was given an ultimatum on the third day. Rise or at least let us help him rise, or we would have to euthanize him. The third day he got up and walked to the door. He peed indoors for the first time since I aquired him when he was standing by the door, because he'd held it for so long and I was too slow but I didn't scold him.

Carlos got better and went without incident until March 13, 2013, when he cried out in pain and began walking in circles. Unable to turn to the right for two days, I took him once again to the veterinary neurologist.  By the time we got there he was able to walk normally and showed no signs of pain. I did record his behavior again however, and the neurologist agreed that it was another herniated disc. Today Carlos is back to normal routine. He has our home layout memorized, he's not sick or hurting, and he is still doing his therapy visits. Now you're all caught up.