Sweet Caesar is improving a little bit each day from Tetanus, and his neck wound is healing beautifully. The best news of all is that once we started him on his meds, he did not get worse, and we did not have to put a feeding tube in. Tetanus can shut down your airway and prevent a dog from breathing and eating because of the locked jaw.
Tetanus in dogs is a lot rarer that you could imagine which is why they are not given the vaccine as part of their regular shots. It has to be a deep wound where the animal has come in contact with the anaerobic tetanus bacteria. Not all rusty nails have the bacteria in them. The soil where the nail has been has to have the tetanus bacteria, or the rusty nail is just that, a rusty nail. If an animal has a deep wound and starts digging a hole where the bacteria is, it can get into the wound. Because the bacteria thrives in an anaerobic environment, oxygen can kill the germ which is why it is rare in dogs.
Caesar did not get the bacteria from the metal embedded collar. He got the bacteria from the soil where he had been living. The bacteria Clostridium Tetani was living in the soil where there was no oxygen. Caesar, probably dug a hole to keep cool with this high heat we have been having, and the bacteria entered into an anaerobic area of the wound where it could survive and thrive.
The good news is that the ER Team caught it in time and prevented him from having further complications. Caesar's eyes and ears will look strange for the next couple of weeks until he gets it out of his system. His ears get very erect and bunch up toward the middle of his head, and his eyes look like he has a fixed stare with no blinking.
Everyone at the hospital loves this sweet pup. He is delightful to be around and is slowly learning some much-needed manners as you can see in one of his videos. Caesar is still in the Hospital being treated by the Neurology Team. Please, Donate whatever you can so we can take care of all his Medical Bills. Thanks for caring and helping us with this sweet pup.
