1124. The angry young man

On Sep 6, 2013, I had a biting poodle who came in for the annual vaccination. "My dog keeps scratching and scratching," the wife said. I muzzled the dog, asking the owner to put in the muzzle. The dog stopped biting.  He had very painful ears esp. the left one and had thining hairs on the left and right flanks. Hair loss on the elbows. "What is the cause of this skin scratching?" the wife asked.

"It is hard to know what is the cause," I replied. "There is a small area of crust on the left ear edge. It seems to indicate sarcoptic mange. Since you used Frontline, the mites could be killed but not all. So the only evidence was a 1-cum ear edge crustiness. Parts of the neck, muzzle and chest were hairless. I need to scrap the skin of the ear edge."

Skin scraping of one site showed no mites. Owners don't like another 2 sites to be scraped. Hair examination did not show fungus. I advised ear irrigation and clipping bald but to do a good job, I needed to sedate this poodle. The owners consented..  

Inside the cage, the dog pulled away the muzzle strings and could now bite."Next time, tighten the muzzle after the owner had put it on," I said to Naing.
"You said to ask the owner to muzzle the dog," Naine retorted in a tone that suggested he would not be blamed.