FurPaw,

Not to alarm you but my Brandy did this behavior for almost three years
prior to showing full blown signs of facial nerve paralysis. I always
thought the nose wiping was from her allergies bothering her. Here I found
out that this is one of the signs a dog has this long before becomes very
apparent. They will also carry their head tilted to one side for no reason
occasionally. The last year she developed sloppy drinking habits where she
had none before. Along with all these things that I thought were her age
catching up was the fact that her right eye occasionally would get droopy
for a day or so. I even had my local vet look at it and of course when
she'd see her the eye would be back to normal. The eye thing happened on
and off for almost two years.

I really hope this isn't what's wrong with your dog. I felt awful when I
found out she had been showing signs for years and we never picked up on it
because it was so subtle in her case. When it finally went full blown she
went down hill very fast. We lost her in less than a months time. The
doctor said there was no way of knowing it was going on since it was so
subtle with her and like most people I thought it was due to her age. By the
time we caught it she already had either a lesion on the spine causing her
to become paralyzed or a brain tumor doing it. She was almost 11 so we
chose to let her pass rather than put her through surgery and hope she
recovered.

Please ask you vet about it when you take him in about this I'd hate for it
to be missed like it was in Brandys case. I still wonder if we'd caught it
early if she'd be with us today.

Celeste





My yellow lab recently started wiping his face on us, the
bedclothes, the carpet... He is having a problem with his eyes,
which we are trying to get diagnosed and corrected (not successful
so far - tomorrow he's getting sedated so the vet can take a really
good look). That was not one of his behaviors before his eyes began
bothering him.

FurPaw

--
"Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning."
- T. S. Eliot

To reply, unleash the dog

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cats teach us, keep your own counsel, cherish your independence, and give
love without surrendering one's self. Dogs teach us, sniff every corner of
the room before you decide to stay. Turn around 3 time and create a magic
circle before you settle down to dreaming & decide to trust someone totally
before you die.

That must have been awful for you and Brandy to go through! Thank
you for mentioning it to me, I'll watch for changes in his carriage
and movement, and I'll mention it to my vet.

I do think that the problem is in Oppie's eyes, however - he has a
small superficial ulceration on each cornea that even we can see.
The question is, what's causing it. At first we thought he'd
scratched one eye running through the brush (looking for wabbits),
but although it initially responded to treatment, it kept coming
back, and now his other eye is affected, and the antibiotics and
serum don't seem to be having any effect. Today the vet is going to
debride the ulcers and examine the insides of his lids closely - she
suspects errant eyelashes.

FurPaw

Spot wrote:
FurPaw,

Not to alarm you but my Brandy did this behavior for almost three years
prior to showing full blown signs of facial nerve paralysis.



--
"Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning."
- T. S. Eliot

To reply, unleash the dog

Wow, I've never heard of something like this coming back. Barney as a pup
had his eye scratched when playing with my cat and later developed a wart on
lower lid that had to be removed. Both caused eye irritations but both
cleared up with eye drops and antibiotics. With the wart removal my vet
ended up doing some puppy nit N tuck surgery later to the skin beneath the
lower lid because the lid was curling in and irritating the eye. Once she
tightened up the skin it no longer curled and he never had any other
problems with it.

I hope you find what's wrong and get it cured. Eye problems are so hard to
deal with at times.

Celeste



"FurPaw" wrote in message
...
That must have been awful for you and Brandy to go through! Thank
you for mentioning it to me, I'll watch for changes in his carriage
and movement, and I'll mention it to my vet.

I do think that the problem is in Oppie's eyes, however - he has a
small superficial ulceration on each cornea that even we can see.
The question is, what's causing it. At first we thought he'd
scratched one eye running through the brush (looking for wabbits),
but although it initially responded to treatment, it kept coming
back, and now his other eye is affected, and the antibiotics and
serum don't seem to be having any effect. Today the vet is going to
debride the ulcers and examine the insides of his lids closely - she
suspects errant eyelashes.

FurPaw

Spot wrote:
FurPaw,

Not to alarm you but my Brandy did this behavior for almost three years
prior to showing full blown signs of facial nerve paralysis.



--
"Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning."
- T. S. Eliot

To reply, unleash the dog

Thanks. The vet who worked on Oppie's eyes said that it's not
uncommon that eye injuries are difficult to heal, because the cornea
doesn't have a blood supply. Hopefully his debriding and cleaning
up the areas (each about 2mm**2) will do the trick.

FurPaw

Spot wrote:
Wow, I've never heard of something like this coming back. Barney as a pup
had his eye scratched when playing with my cat and later developed a wart on
lower lid that had to be removed. Both caused eye irritations but both
cleared up with eye drops and antibiotics. With the wart removal my vet
ended up doing some puppy nit N tuck surgery later to the skin beneath the
lower lid because the lid was curling in and irritating the eye. Once she
tightened up the skin it no longer curled and he never had any other
problems with it.

I hope you find what's wrong and get it cured. Eye problems are so hard to
deal with at times.

Celeste


--
"Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning."
- T. S. Eliot

To reply, unleash the dog