What is a hot spot?

A hot spot is a moist, smelly, raw area of the skin. The skin is normally oozy and it smells quite bad. Sometimes hot spot can occur without your dog ever chewing or scratching at the area. They can appear overnight, one day nothing, the next day a big oozy raw mess.

Theories differ from the reason why these hot spots occur. Some people think they are caused by bacteria. Others think they are caused by the dogs body expelling a toxin out of their skin. Sometimes they can occur just from irritation.

Lick granulomas can also develop into a hot spot. A lick granuloma is an area a dog will excessively lick and chew – often on their legs and feet. The area will first be pink, raw, and irritated, but can develop into an oozy hotspot without intervention.

Hot spots can also occur from allergies, sensitivities, and other intolerances. Fleas can be be one of these causes. Some dogs are more sensitive to fleas than others. When my dogs had just a few fleas, they chewed off their backsides and developed hot spots all over. Other causes include: food allergies, anal glad problems, grooming neglect, insect bites, and even stress.

Hot spots are also called acute moist dermatitis, moist eczema, or summer sores.

How do I treat a hot spot?

If the hotspot is still small, you may choose to trim the hair with scissors. Larger hotspots should be shaved, including at least an inch around the hotspot. Clipping or shaving allows air to get at the hotspot to allow it to dry. Your dog is going to lose the hair where the hotspot is, if he/she hasn’t already. There is no way to prevent the hair loss. Don’t worry, it will grow back! (I know, small consolation if you have a show coming up!).

You will read all sorts of seemingly crazy ideas to get rid of a hot spot faster. I have tried almost every one. The only one I found that seemed to work better than the rest, was squeezing a Vitamin E capsule on the area. Other ideas include; green tea bags, Gold Bond Powder, sulphur powder, . For very moist hot spots, the application of a powder seems quite counter productive. While they will help form a crust over the area, the wet moist infection will still be raging underneath.

When my dogs have had a bad hot spot, I take them to the veterinarian. The vet will clip the area and clean it. When the are particularly green and gooey, my vet has prescribed an antibiotic, and a hydrocortisone cream. I have heard of very large hot spot receiving a cortisone injection by a veterinarian.

How do I prevent hot spots?

There are some things you can do to prevent hot spots. Never let your Golden Retriever go to sleep wet after swimming, or a bath, or walking in the rain. Thoroughly dry your dog with a towel, or use a blow dryer if you have to. Hot spots that occur from your dog being left wet are normally located in the folds under the legs, behind their ears, under the neck – any place where the air can’t get to.

Groom your dog regularly. Not only will you remove possible irritants (you know the items your dogs can pick up in their coats! burrs, sticks, thistles, grasses etc) and remove the loose hair, but you can also look for any sign of fleas.

One of my Golden Retrievers seems to be allergic to any and all grains. If he has as much as one MilkBone treat, he will have a hotspot within 2 days. With a grain-free diet (including no rice) he does okay (ie. a raw diet, home made diet, or a duck and potato kibble diet).

If you choose to feed your dog kibble, you are fortunate that there are more and more nutritious options available for your dog than there were just a few years ago.

There are many cheap, unhealthy kibbles available in pet stores near you. Here are some reasons why you should spend time researching your kibble selection so you can feed your dog the best diet possible:

Maggie was very much like your Winger, she was fun, loved the water and playing ball was her favorite. A couple of years ago we noticed a lump on the back of her neck and she also had one on her chest. When she was ten years old the lump on the back of her head and a new lump on her front elbow area on her front leg got extremely large. I took her to the vet and he decided to remove them, but was concerned about the amount of the tumor he could remove from the leg area. He sent part of the tumor to the lab and it came back inconclusive, but it was recommended that the entire area be removed. After the first removal, another even larger tumor appeared on her hind leg. I brought her in and that area was also removed (approximate 8 inch incision). It wasn’t long after, a tumor started on the incision on the front leg from the prior removal and not long after that another tumor reappeared on the hind leg as well. The tumor on the back of her neck never came back because what I now believe was successful because of the large amount of skin she had available there.

The past five months we found her drinking water excessively, she started with a small cough that only seemed to get worse and more frequent. We were dealing with her constantly scratching her skin and licking the tumor areas, which would result in them splitting open. The scratching turned to licking the non-tumor areas, which resulted in hot spots and loss of fur. I took her to the vet and he treated her for allergies with an injection and an antibiotic for her open sores. I found her getting somewhat better and her appetite would increase as well as her weight. When the antibiotics ran out, a week later the allergy symptoms returned. I took her back and we started her on Prednisone, which gave her some relief from the allergy symptoms, but she was unable to hold her urine and was urinating on the floor at any time (she was the girl with the iron bladder). My wife and I both work so it was difficult to leave her alone knowing that we would come home to a wet mess. Kenneling her was something we never did and so confining her to the kitchen during the day and at night was the only option. This was a dog that would sleep with me nightly, so it was difficult for her to be alone. The Prednisone did not work and we tried to treat her allergies one last time, but when the meds wore off and the antibiotics ran out we were back to the same problem. During this time a tumor on the base of her tail had formed and another approximately 2 inches from her anus. Her stools were extremely soft and she urinated often. Every morning I would come down stairs to find her pillow soaked with her saliva and I knew she had spent the night licking her tumors and skin until they were raw. Finally Friday night, October 26, 2007 I woke in the middle of the night to hear her scratching and crying. My wife woke a bit later, hearing the same crying. I knew for over a week that it was time, because I knew her quality of life was diminishing. The hardest thing was that I could not bring my self to do it, because regardless to how she felt, she was always up to a long walk or an excessive amount of ball playing. I would think, “how can I put this dog down when she can still physically do so much”, but I had to be fair to her suffering.

Saturday morning October 27, 2007 after hearing her cry as she tried to relieve her skin ailments, I told my wife I had to take her to the vet to have her laid to rest. That morning I took her for a long walk, fed her an enormous amount of treats and table scraps and played ball one last time.

At 11:45 am on that morning I took her to the vet and he understood why I thought it was time. I held her in on my lap and put her head to mine. I could feel her heart beat as my hand was holding her up by her rib cage. She had to use her one leg to help her support part of herself up, as the doctor shaved her leg for the injection. She never moved, which I don’t know if I am thinking this to console myself, but it seemed by her lack of movement that she knew it was time. As I witnessed the injection going into her I heard her last breath and felt her last heart beat. My little girl was gone and I sat with her for some time. I have never felt such pain and never thought a dog would cause so much heart ache, but she was not a dog, she was my friend. No matter what my mood was she was always there for me.

I later had guilt, asking myself if what I did was right? Could I have done more? I wondered if she would forgive me? I remember her lying there after she had past and saw how peaceful she looked as I was crying over her and petting her fur. I write this e-mail with tears falling from my face and as I know my guilt and pain will pass, I pray that she is in a peaceful place and that one day when I pass, she will be there with a ball in her mouth ready to have some fun with no pain and no illness.

Thank you for telling your story and thank you for allowing me to tell you my own. The story you told about Winger has given me an understanding about my own dogs illness and has helped the healing of a heavy heart.

In humans, blastomycosis is also known as Gilchrist’s disease, Gilchrist’s mycosis, Blastomyces dermatitidis, and Chicago disease.

Without proper diagnosis and treatment, Blastomycosis can be fatal.

For more information about Blastomycosis, visit http://Blastomycosis.ca.

Blastomycosis has also been reported in other animals, including the horse, cow, cat, bat, and lion.

After exposure to Blastomycosis, it may be weeks or months before you dog is showing symptoms. If a dog only inhales a few spores and is healthy, it is possible for his immune system to eliminate the spores. However if the amount of spores is great, or if the dog is immune suppressed or fighting another disease they will have a greater chance of taking hold within the lungs. As the single-celled yeast they become in the lungs, they can multiple rapidly.

Diagnosis
To diagnose Blastomycosis, you need to get a positive sample of the blasto yeast from a lymph node or draining skin lesion or possibly by doing a lung wash, and maybe by sampling material coughed up by the dog. It is very difficult to get a positive sample, and there are many false positives and negatives when trying to diagnoses blastomycosis. A chest x-ray will confirm the symptoms, but not definitively diagnose the condition. Chest x-rays often show a “fluffy snowstorm” appearance to the lungs, which are the fungal organisms and associated inflammation.

Treatment
One informational site says that “About 65 percent of dogs diagnosed with blastomycosis do survive. Because the treatment is long, complicated, and expensive with the potential for serious side effects, some owners elect to euthanize affected pets. In treated dogs, survival rates are approximately 85 percent, with up to 25 percent suffering relapses. Dogs with brain or eye involvement have a worse prognosis, and dogs with poor liver or kidney function may not be able to tolerate the necessary medications that must be metabolized by these organs. If an eye is involved, it usually must be removed since eyes don’t respond well to therapy and serve as a source of infection.” (source). Personally, and unfortunately, all the stories I have heard about blastomycosis in the last week have involved the death of the dog.

The treatment drugs of choice are amphotericin B, Ketoconazole and Itraconazole. Treatment is very expensive, and all figures I have read this week report costs incurred over $5000 Cdn. More information about these drugs for treatment, the use and side-effects can be found on this page
Even if the drug treatment is successful, it will not reverse any spinal or bone damage, or blindness. Even after treatment, the infection can remain dormant for many years and then reappear. However, after a year of remission without disease recurrence it is unlikely that your pet will have another occurrence of the disease.

Last month, with my “puppy” lying at my feet, I would never have believed I would be writing this note so soon. Laika was such a big part of my life, and I had hoped we would have many more years together before it was time for her move on to the greener hunting grounds. As my daughter noted, she was like the third child in the family, the one who unlike the others would never leave home and would always stay with me. Although over the years, ever since growing up in Finland, I’ve had many dogs, Laika was special: she was my first competition dog, my first Golden, and my constant companion, accompanying me on working trips on forest trails, being by my side when I was working on the computer, following me around the house and the yard, and sleeping under my bed at night. It’s those times I remember, both the quiet and the wild, as well as all the fun we had learning clicker training, obedience, tracking, retrieving, and agility together. In the end our moments together were reduced to her licking a bit of yogurt from my finger and to a flicker of recognition from her tired eyes.

Ever since a pup, tracking was her favorite activity. She had a wonderfully acute sense of smell (that sometimes got her into troubles!) and learned quickly the idea of finding “lost objects” and following human tracks. She never failed me at a tracking test and got her CKC and AKC Tracking Dog and Tracking Dog Excellent titles all on the first tries. In June 2003, we traveled to Prince George where she delighted me by passing her Canadian TDX with flying colours. In September 2004, she passed her American TDX at Fort Lewis, Washington; I wrote about this wonderful experience in a previous issue of Golden Tails. We were practicing for the new urban tracking titles, and on a stormy morning at a tracking workshop last February she amazed me by tackling a 12-hour old track.

She was a gentle soul who always enthusiastically greeted people, never harassed rabbits, cats (well, the small black cat that runs deserves to be chased), or chickens, and respected the no-dog zones in the house and yard that were marked with flags. She was a therapy dog with the Pacific Animal Therapy Society and brought moments of joy and recognition to the residents of the Broadmead Logde, where she visited every Sunday for about a year. Earlier this summer we moved to a small hobby farm near Victoria. Laika enthusiastically approved of the new quarters and for a brief time enjoyed fetching the ball and running through the newly cut hay.

She died of cryptococcosis, a rare but emerging fungal disease of mammals that is becoming more and more prevalent on Vancouver Island and has also been detected on the Lower Mainland just recently. There have been several cases in cats and dogs and a few in humans since the disease was first found here. Most of what we know about the disease comes from studies in Australia. Cats are particularly susceptible and may be considered sentinels of the disease, but symptoms are often more severe in dogs. Transmission is from spores in the air and not from mammal to mammal, as far as it’s known. Although in humans the disease often attacks immune-compromised individuals, there is no such relationship in dogs and apparently healthy individuals are often affected. As the vet said, Laika just happened to sniff the wrong bush at the wrong time. Symptoms vary but often involve the respiratory system. The fungus has usually been present for 8 – 10 months in the body before any symptoms are noted.

Laika first showed signs of being sick in June, when I noticed she had very low energy and her breathing sounded hoarse (there was an earlier incident of hair loss from a toe in February that might have been related). I was very alarmed, but the vet found nothing wrong with her. Since she seemed better next week, I ran her in a WC test (she passed, after an incident of a loose puppy snatching the duck from her mouth!). In the beginning of August, the symptoms returned, and she was down, listless and not eating, by the end of the week. A bit of detective work led to a positive diagnosis with Cryptococcus. By that time she had systemic mycosis that had invaded her respiratory and central nervous systems. She struggled on for a week on aggressive drug therapy, but the disease was too far progressed and had damaged the brain. The therapy was very harsh and involved subcutaneous and oral administration of two different fungicides. A massive die-off of fungi in the brain as result of the treatment caused inflammation and neurological symptoms. Had she been an older dog, I would have hesitated before putting her through the treatment. That said, if detected early enough, before CNS involvement, the prognosis is excellent and a return to a normal life is possible. However, the therapy is long-term and very expensive, and prospects of a total cure are uncertain. Unlike in Australia, vets in Victoria have had little luck in totally eradicating the fungus from the body of affected animals. Diagnosis is through a blood test or nasal smear.

Would I have done anything differently? Had I known what was to come, I would certainly have followed up on her earlier respiratory episode in June and tried to get the bottom of it. I don’t think there is any reason to panic or to avoid traveling with your dog. One can come into contact with the fungal spores anywhere; apparently there’s an indoor cat in Oak Bay in Victoria that has the disease. Fortunately, the disease is still rare. All we can do is to follow up any suspected symptoms (sometimes more than one test might be required, as blood tests are not fool-proof), point out the possibility to our vets who might rarely have encountered the disease, and appreciate every day and every moment when our friends are still with us. If anyone ever is unfortunate enough to contact the disease, I’m certainly willing to share the details of my experience.

Laika had many friends all across Canada, and I thank all the various people who have expressed their sympathy. Special thanks to my training partners Maralyn and Carmela for all their help and support in the difficult last weeks, and to Maralyn for letting me have this beautiful, gentle girl and being there for us every step of the way, from the beginning to the end. Laika would have been 5 years old this September.

CROUP: The muscular area above and around where the tail connects to the body.

DEWCLAW: A fifth claw which is located in the inside of the front feet, and is higher than the other toes. Some dewclaws are removed as a puppy to prevent injuries (dewclaws can get ripped or torn – always keep your golden’s dewclaws trimmed short).

HOCK: The joint on the rear of the back legs, between the rear pastern and stifle.

LOIN: The section of the body located on both sides of the backbone between the ribs and the hips.

MUZZLE: The front part of the jaws.

PASTERN: The section of the leg below the knee of the front leg or below the hock of the hind leg.

STIFLE: The knee joint of the hind leg. “Hindquarter Angulation” refers to the angle formed at this joint.

STOP: The frontal portion of the skull between the eyes and the top of the head.