Penny came to us through another rescue that saved her from the hoarder that Baxter came from. Many other dogs were also rescued, and three others had a similar problem as Penny but one died. She came with meningitis type symptoms with a very high fever, neck pain and a high white blood cell count. One of the other dogs has had these symptoms every few months. Knowing how bad of a problem Baxter had coming from this same hoarder and the fact that three dogs had similar symptoms as Penny, I thought it may be a genetic defect in the central nervous system.
By the time she got to us, she had been under the care of a couple of Veterinarians that did a full work up with blood work, antibiotics, fluids and supportive care. Her fever came down to 103.6 which is still elevated, but her white blood cells did not budge. It was still over 30,000 when it should have been about 10,000. We took radiographs of her cervical spine in her neck and sent them to a radiologist, but they did not see any abnormalities. We started her on Baytril, which is an antibiotic that can cross the blood brain barrier. This is a normal barrier that keeps bacteria, viruses, parasites etc, out of the central nervous system.
I felt with the history and the other three cases, there may be a defect in this barrier. Within four days on Baytril, her white blood cell count was back to normal. We continued for a total of ten days since she was ill for over a month, and it stayed normal. She was not able to be spayed prior to this as she was sick. We spayed her with no issues, and she has been doing well ever since.
We are keeping a close eye on her and if she starts to act ill, we will check her blood work immediately and start her back on meds. It has been over a month now and she is still doing well. She helped Baxter a lot after Timmy died, because he was mourning. Baxter would come get us any time day or night that Timmy had a seizure. He was very close to him and was extremely upset when we had to put Timmy down. Penny is Baxter’s sunshine.
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