Arno's Story
A friend brought Arno from the north of Italy to his kennel in Canada. He stayed at that kennel for awhile, and then came to my kennel in May of 2001. I remember his mouth was tender and he would whine sometimes when I gave him something large to eat. We checked his teeth but found no problem there. During the pheasant season he worked fine except for his retrieving. He refused to retrieve pheasants and I wondered why, but put it out of my mind as something we would work on.
In November I attended a confirmation show in Chicago. Perhaps I knew this was to be no ordinary weekend. I delayed signing up for the five-day cluster of shows. I finally entered at the last minute, wondering what was bothering me so much.
The plan was to drop Arno off at my niece's and continue on to the windy city. We would stay at our friend Diana’s house. Her invitation was extended to all of our six dogs but we had planed on four. This, with her two, would have been more than enough imposition for the weekend.
I tried to remove Arno from the van but he threw a tantrum twisting and turning in the crate as to make it nigh on impossible to remove him. I wasn’t sure just what caused all this frightened resistance, but I finally gave in and took him with us.
Diana had set up crates in the basement, and it worked out much better than we had expected. What a good sport she is and a good friend. But then most Spinone people are like that. The foreboding feeling still nagged at me and I thought I was feeling ill, but in hindsight I think I knew there was something wrong.
Friday morning we were up at 5AM taking care of dogs. When we left for the show, we had three dogs remaining at the house. Lindsay (another Spinone friend) would come in at noon for a shift at doggie potty duty.
We completed the morning class competition and were waiting for the group to start, when we received a phone call from Lindsay. She said Arno's eye was closed and it was all swollen. I wasn’t too surprised with the way he had beat himself in the crate the day before. He must have smacked his eye and it swelled shut, I thought.
There was a time span of some six hours from the time we spoke to Lindsay until the time we returned to Diana’s. In that span, the swelling had gone from the eye to the entire right side of his head almost to the crown. We brought out the ice pack to try to bring down the swelling. I was not unconcerned, but still thinking he had hit himself on the top of his crate. I didn’t consider it an emergency.
Back at home Monday morning, I called the vet and was told to bring him right over. X-rays showed no fractures of the skull. He was running a high fever and the vet noticed a dark spot at the back of his jaw on the x-ray. I was convinced he had hit himself but the vet was not so sure; he started him on antibiotics and cold packs.
The next day the vet called and ask me to bring him back in. The swelling had continued and was now noticed in the jowl and he was tender to the touch along the left side of his mouth.
The vet had been thinking about Arno and come to the conclusion, the problem was in the jaw, not the skull. He wanted to sedate him to investigate the dark spot that showed on the x-ray. I agreed and he proceeded.
I came back later to pick up my boy and learn the results. The vet had found an abscessed channel at the back of his jaw. He suggested that at some time in the past Arno had been running and a stick had gone into his open mouth, pushed into the jaw cartilage, and snapped off. The piece in the jaw had either dissolved or pulled out leaving a hollow channel. It may have been infected a long time as the cells were impacted with a dark crust, and only his immune system was keeping it under control. The stress of the trip had caused more of a problem than his immune system could handle. He may have had a low grade fever that went unnoticed.
The vet cleaned it and we kept him on antibiotics for a couple of weeks. He was a pretty sorry looking dog. What a freak thing to happen! It may have occurred while Arno was still in Italy. The scabbing was a dark brown coloration; the vet said, " It had to have been there for months. "
Looking back, I figure he refused to retrieve because he had pain and could not open his mouth wide. Chewing something large or hard was probably also painful.
Arno today is a totally different animal; he runs and plays like a puppy. He has a wonderful personality and a zest for life that shows in every waking moment. He definitely is a believer in La Dolce Vita. He keeps the younger dogs moving in the exercise yard and he loves to run. I can’t wait to try him on pheasants again.
Mike McCormick