August
It’s August in Colorado, and this month, more than any other is one that tends to bring with it some very seasonally specific veterinary issues.
The first thing I associate with August in the Rockies is mushroom season. Those fleeting fungal fruits make their most abundant appearances within the confines of these thirty days. As an extremely amateur mycologist I have been impressed with the number and variety of mushrooms that spring up this time of year in this region. Equally impressive are all the variations in toxicity from edible to deadly poisonous. Mushroom hunters gleefully gather the edibles to season their dishes. Dogs scarf down mushrooms just as enthusiastically, but with considerably less discrimination. We are fortunate that we do not tend to have the deadly poisonous mushrooms in the Colorado Springs area, but there are several that can cause a dramatic, though usually short lived, case of gastrointestinal upset. Diagnosing mushroom toxicity is hard to do unless the dog is witnessed eating the mushroom and the mushroom can be positively identified. Because mushroom identification takes very specialized knowledge and training, veterinarians won’t often be able to help with identification even if you bring in the offending item. In a severe case in which there is a high degree of suspicion of serious mushroom toxicity there is a specialist in Denver associated with the Poison Control Center who could guide a veterinarian toward local resources who could help.
August is also the official opening month for hot spot season. Hot spots are maddeningly itchy, red, gooey rashes. Owners tend to come in looking a little sheepish because they worry I am going to think they are horribly neglectful people for letting their dog’s skin develop such a nasty looking patch. “It just happened overnight, I swear” is what I usually hear, and in reality that’s probably about true. These rashes are superficial skin infections that happen when the skin becomes inflamed and loses its natural ability to keep the normal bacteria that live on the surface in balance. When the bacteria start to multiply out of control a hot spot develops quickly. The initial trigger for the inflammation is usually an allergic response to something that is blooming this time of year. Dog hay fever manifests with itchy skin instead of a drippy nose like people get. Treatment usually involves clipping the hair from around the rash and giving oral antibiotics and anti-inflammatories or possibly topical versions of those medications, and if necessary, preventing the dog from further traumatizing the area by strapping on an e-collar. Because hot spots are usually caused by the normal bacteria on the skin they are not a risk for being contagious to people or other dogs. Be aware, however, that there are a host of skin diseases that could look just like a hot spot but actually be caused by something else. It is best to have those rashes professionally evaluated when they appear.
The last, fairly August specific entity is cuterebra larvae. I wrote about these in greater detail in a previous article. These can affect almost any mammal, and rabbits are a preferred host. If you are seeing a volcano-like mound on your pet’s skin that may be oozing a little pus, and at the top of the volcano there is a perfectly round hole, take a moment to really look inside. You may be able to see the tail end of the cuterebra larva moving inside its cozy little home in the skin. The treatment is to get the worm out of the hole, but if you just squeeze the volcano like a zit you run the risk that the body of the larva is bigger than the opening of the hole and you might accidentally squeeze the guts out but leave the worm’s skin inside the hole. That will cause a tissue reaction and result in a lot of festering at the least. It is better to have your veterinarian use a local block near the opening so that it can be enlarged with a scalpel blade before the worm is removed.
August is certainly a busy time to be a veterinarian, and we haven’t even touched on the greater frequency of thunderstorm phobia, procupine quill incidents and skunk encounters. Fortunately, in spite of all this, I think there is a good chance we will all probably survive to see September.
