Allergies and an Injury

Bailey has always had eye boogers. I clean them off her face whenever they appear which is usually every-other-morning or so. Its a joke... its playful... "momma hates eye boogers" said in a sing-song voice... and she just lets me do it...

Last summer, she had some issues with some reoccurring spots on her back. We figured it was just chigger bites since her flea/tic/mosquito treatment didn't list them as something it guarded against. Once the fall came around, the spots disappeared and we forgot all about them.

Last month, the spots showed up again. We were already going to the vet for some annual vaccines so I asked about them when we got there. The vet checked them for mites (negative) and gave me some special shampoo to try to clear it up.

Over the next few days, I noticed the eye boogers were coming more frequently and seemed to be worse from her left eye. I kept an eye on her to see if it got better or worse since her eyes didn't seem to be bothering her. Less than a week after we had seen the vet, I noticed her left eye was red and seemed irritated. So I called a smaller vet who is closer to our house and easier to get into on short notice.

He examined her and said that it looked like allergies. He also said she had an infection... kinda like how we get sinus infections when our allergies act up. He gave me some goo to put in her eyes 2x a day and said to start her on Benadryl to help with the allergies overall. (Of course the goo has steroids in it so I can't touch it... my husband has to do it and will only do it when I remind him so it only gets done once a day if we are lucky.)

Well, the shampoo has worked wonders after only 2 treatments and her eyes are no longer as gooey despite our lack of consistency. But now one of the spots from her back has shown up on her lower eye lid. It doesn't seem to bother her so I have just been giving the Benadryl and continuing the goo and watching to see if it gets worse.

Then we went to the dog park the other day for the first time in a few weeks. She was so excited and immediately spotted a man tossing a ball for his dog, Bo, using a "chuck-it". Since Bailey doesn't really get the concept of fetch (outdoors with a ball, anyway) she chases the dog chasing the ball and seems to have a blast doing so. So Bo chased the ball and Bailey chased Bo, hard, for a solid 15-20 minutes before the man and I agreed it was time for a drink break since they were both panting kinda hard.

As we were walking away from the fountain, I noticed Bailey was walking kinda funny. Stiff... her back end was waddling like she couldn't move her legs at the hips. I moved closer to get a better angle but she seemed to be walking fine. I kept watching and noticed her waddling again. Then Bo's dad mentioned he thought she was walking "kinda hippy".

I kept pretty close to her for a few minutes to see what she would do. Usually, she stays far away from me because she doesn't want to go home. But she stayed pretty close so I decided it was time to go. When I tried to make her sit so I could put her leash on, she flat out refused, and just stood there looking at me like "I can't". As we were walking toward the gate to leave, she tried to stop twice like she didn't want to go on. And when we got to the car, I almost had to lift her in.

We got home and she kept going from walking fine to waddling. She laid down for a while, then seemed fine. This morning, all seemed well. I am guessing she may have pushed herself too hard to fast for too long with out getting warmed up first and maybe pulled a muscle or something. Again, I plan to keep an eye on her just in case.

She was just 16 months last week... and she already seems to be falling apart...

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I am 12 weeks today...