The hives, that is. Grace is queen of the hives. She's covered in them.
Grace slept on our bed last night. About 5am she got up and went and crashed in Jake's room - and about 7am Jake was knocking on our bedroom door saying that 'Gracie has these bumps all over her back'.
We didn't even have to get up to know what they were. 'They're hives' he mumbled and rolled out of bed to check her out.
Sure enough, she had bumps all over her back...and over her chest, on her belly, behind her ears and the top of her head. I looked up the canine dosing instructions for Benadryl (1mg per pound of weight, if you're interested) and we slipped a couple in a hot dog and then Grace slipped the hot dog down her throat.
We don't know what caused them. We bathed her, thinking that she might have an allergy to the laundry detergent we use...but they still kept appearing AFTER we bathed her, so I don't think that's he cause. The only thing out of the ordinary she's done in the past few days is dig up my flower beds - so maybe she's come into contact with something the landscapers use that's been dormant in the soil. Who knows.
They got worse before they got better, but then all the vets whose essays and books we read today said that was likely to happen, just like the hives might last a few days before going away. We changed her meds to Vistaril (same dosing instructions) this evening to see if that didn't make more of an impact on them than the Benadryl did (we had some left over from one of us exhibiting exactly the same symptoms as Grace - hives with an unknown cause).
Poor Grace. I know they itch; she'll be dozing peacefully then will leap up all of a sudden and roll around on the carpet. She's taken to napping on the cool tiled floor this afternoon, I'm guessing that helps with the itching. It's too soon to tell if the Vistaril is helping more then the Benadryl, she got her first dose about an hour ago. It should be kicking in shortly, and hopefully Grace will be able to sleep tonight and get up tomorrow relatively hive free.
We've said that if she's no worse tomorrow, we're going to keep doing with the antihistamines and give the vet a call just to make sure we're doing the right thing. If she's worse tomorrow....well, she's going to have to take a trip to the vet, because obviously what we're doing isn't working and professional advice is going to be needed.
Dave's been as worried about his dog being ill as he was when the kids were ill. It's painful to watch him fret over her, to be honest, and that's another reason I hope she's doing better tomorrow.
Poor Gracie. Poor Dave. Poor me!