How is the Corgi doing? I know you just got your new puppy.

Farley is doing better physically...in that he looks better. He had gotten so bad so quickly that the vet decided (and I agreed) to put him on a temporary steroid regime. He had gotten to the point that his muscles were losing strength and he was dragging his paws causing his nails to wear down and bleed.

Now his lips are normal pink now instead of burn victim pink. His sores are healing. He looks A LOT better. The only problem is that he seems wiped out. Before, even when he looked bad, he seemed pretty happy. He was getting irritated by the sores, but his mental outlook was still peppy, if that makes sense.

Now he just seems depressed. Of course, his walks have stopped as a result of his nails bleeding. The vet was worried that he'd get an infection deep in the nail bed and with an immuno-disorder that could be terrible. So he's on antibiotics for a few days as well. I think not being able to walk bums him out, although I do make a special effort to take him to grassy places to sniff and to our fav coffee shop so he can still be social. He's a VERY social dog.

The long term idea is to put him on a large dose of steroids to get this in control (he was self-injuring himself trying to itch the sores) and then wean him off and put him on a immuno-suppresant that they have had occassional success with for this disorder. I can't remember the name of it right now.

If the new drug doesn't work, we'll have to consider euthanasia because he'll just get worse. I'm not really thinking about that right now.

He should be done with the steroids and on the new drug within a month. I hope he'll be one of the lucky dogs that has success with this drug.

By the way, my friend heard back from the breeder. She's getting both of the parents tested and is refunding the cost of the dog and allowing him to keep the pup. I'm glad she turned out to be the breeder I thought she was. She's really sad about my dog.

Thanks for the concern, it helps!

By way of an update on this fiasco...I HATE STEROIDS!!! Yes, he looks better and it seems to be reversing the symptoms. But I don't even know my dog anymore.

AND...he's suddenly started peeing everywhere. The vet told me that he would be really thirsty and need to pee more. So we let him out often. But he still pees in the house and he NEVER does that. Even if sick, he'll whine and bark to let us know before he just lets it fly. Now it's like he doesn't even care anymore. He's a bump and it's really, really sad. I'm calling the vet tomorrow to see if we can start weaning him off of these drugs earlier than planned.

I miss my dog.

I am sorry to hear about Farley's condition, Ed and I have 2 Corgis of our own and they are such tough and cool little dogs.

I wouldn't rule out vaccine damage, just because Farley hasn't been vaccinated recently makes no difference. Auto immune disease (in my opinion) is man's creation, vaccines, chemicals and substandard inppropriate diets are the cause. I also am of the opinion that vaccine damage can be passed on to future generations. Vets will say auto immune diseases are genetic, but I believe the pups are just a product of their parents level of damage, in many cases. I posted a topic a while ago about females eating specific foods during the pregnancy, altering their offsprings DNA. This was a study done by geneticists, not something I made up

My advice would be to contact a homeopath, and treat him this way. I don't know what conventional therapy consists of but I can guess it is all about supression of symptoms, instead of healing the dog.

My homeopath works long distance, if you are interested. You don't really have anything to lose by contacting her.
http://centralbirdanimal.com Her name is Dr. Levy.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Cindy...I'll look into every treatment option.

In this particular situation, Farley's parent's were visibly free of symptoms. That's why this is so hard to keep out of the breeding stock. Even if a parent seems to be clean, it can still pass it on to their pups who can have a sever form of the disease. Also, it's not discovered until at least puberty so it could be that there are more litters since then. It's hard to keep track of.

If it was vaccine related, then it was rabies a year prior. Not a whole lot to be done about it...there is no way around that shot. Any really, rabies control is essential where I live, so I understand it.

Hey Cindy...nice avatar!!