# foot inflamation and hair loss in two week old puppy



## madalyn (Jul 13, 2010)

Hi guys, I just joined this forum to hopefully get some help about a puppy that I am fostering.
Emma will be two weeks old tomorrow. She was rescued a few days after she was born from a sort of sad situation. The mother is a lab/chow mix and the father is presumably a pit bull. The mother had been chained up her whole life and the family didn't know she was pregnant until she gave birth. All of Emma's littermates died and her mom didn't show interest in her and wouldn't feed her. I am bottle feeding her until she is weened and can be adopted. The day that I took Emma I noticed that she was having hair loss and cracked dry skin on her tail and her left hind foot was considerably swollen with significant cracking and dryness. Her right foot is also dry and cracked but no considerable swelling. I took her to the vet and she scraped for mites, but didn't see any. Neither of the feet or the tail is painful for her when it is manipulated or gently squeezed. Our vet said that it could be an infection and perscriped clavomox which she has been taking for 5 days now. she also recomended light massage to help circulate any lymph fluid that might be built up. Her foot is not improving and may actually be getting slightly worse. It frequently oozes a clear/yellow (almost urine looking substance). Still no pain for Emma, and after a second visit to the vet, she said she had never seen anything like it before and all we could do was wait and see. 
In addition, she seems healthy in every other way, no fever, no pain, very active and waddling around, even attepting to 'play fight' with my hand. She is eating really well, better than I had expected, and seems happy and healthy. 
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about what might be wrong with her foot, or had seen anything like it before. I am attatching photos of both hind feet and her tail.
Thanks so much, I hope someone can help
-Madalyn

Here are the photos:
The first is her tail







The second is her left hind foot







the third is both her hind feet (left is more swollen)







the last is the under side of her feet/pads (the left foot is on the right side of the photo)








again, thank you so much, for any ideas that you might have, I really want to see emma thriving


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## Thracian (Dec 24, 2008)

The poor thing! I don't know what it would be, but I would probably get a second opinion from another vet. Bless you for taking Emma in. I hope you can figure out the problem and get her doing well.


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## cshellenberger (Dec 2, 2006)

That looks like localized demodex, which it well could be since the pup has gotten non of the benefits of moms immune system. I'd have the vet do a new skin scrape as sometimes the mites don't get caught. I'm not sure what the treatment protocol would be in such a young pup as most of the things that would be used to treat older dogs are too harsh for a pup this young. Most likely a good puppy vitamin will help, but it's really up to the vets to decide. Do you know of ANYONE with a nursing bitch that might take on another pup as the best thing to boost this pups immune system would be a bitchs milk.


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## Germanbabies (Jul 16, 2011)

I have a 3 week old german shepard puppy he has the exact same thing that your puppy had did you ever find out what it was and how to treat. Thank you for your reply


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## madalyn (Jul 13, 2010)

Hi,
To answer your question about whether we found out what was wrong with Emma...yes and no. She got a lot worse very quickly. We brought her to a vet school as a last resort to try to get a lot of opinions fast. While we were there she started having heart problems. Her little heart was beating so fast that the vet couldn't count her beats per minute. Turns out she had a lot of fluid around her heart. We weren't sure why she was having problems with fluid drainage but we were pretty sure we would have to put her to sleep. She was in bad shape and not getting enough oxygen. We took her back to our primary vet to discuss options and she decided to try some sort of experimental treatment that she had success with once before. she went home and got her dog, took some of it's blood, spun it down and separated out just the plasma and injected it into Emma and also gave her an injection of antibiotics. By the next day she was doing worlds better and ended up making a full recovery. Her feet and tail healed completely and she was adopted at about 10 weeks old. In the end they think it was a serious infection in her blood that the oral antibiotics weren't treating. we never confirmed this though...
I hope your puppy is alright and you figure out what is wrong! I wish I had more advice to offer, but it was sort of a mystery what happened to Emma.
best of luck,
madalyn


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## takem_brewer (Aug 12, 2011)

Check this out...Congenital Ectodermal Dysplasia with Skin Fragility It looks very similar to what your pictures are showing. My breed (chessies) are now testing for it as a litter just turned up with it recently...

This website can also give you more info about it.
http://www.chessieinfo.net/user/image/cbred-sf.pdf


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## Crystal carprew (Jun 25, 2020)

madalyn said:


> View attachment 20077
> 
> Hi guys, I just joined this forum to hopefully get some help about a puppy that I am fostering.
> Emma will be two weeks old tomorrow. She was rescued a few days after she was born from a sort of sad situation. The mother is a lab/chow mix and the father is presumably a pit bull. The mother had been chained up her whole life and the family didn't know she was pregnant until she gave birth. All of Emma's littermates died and her mom didn't show interest in her and wouldn't feed her. I am bottle feeding her until she is weened and can be adopted. The day that I took Emma I noticed that she was having hair loss and cracked dry skin on her tail and her left hind foot was considerably swollen with significant cracking and dryness. Her right foot is also dry and cracked but no considerable swelling. I took her to the vet and she scraped for mites, but didn't see any. Neither of the feet or the tail is painful for her when it is manipulated or gently squeezed. Our vet said that it could be an infection and perscriped clavomox which she has been taking for 5 days now. she also recomended light massage to help circulate any lymph fluid that might be built up. Her foot is not improving and may actually be getting slightly worse. It frequently oozes a clear/yellow (almost urine looking substance). Still no pain for Emma, and after a second visit to the vet, she said she had never seen anything like it before and all we could do was wait and see.
> ...


I have two 2wk old puppies and the same situation. Except the yellow stuff coming out. But i think the swollen comes from them not using there back legs as much right now. And i think the hair loss comes from them using the bathroom on themselves because they are not able to use the bathroom correctly just yet.


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## LeoRose (Aug 20, 2015)

This is a nine year old thread, the OP is long gone, and your puppies (and probably your bitch, as well) need to see a vet, since the "yellow stuff" is sign of an infection.


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