Pyometra: Deadly but 100 Percent Preventable

Peanut came into our lives just a few short months ago. She's no beauty queen nor a spring chicken, but she rules the roost already. She is an ancient Chihuahua, graying and missing her front teeth, she was bred to excess for the financial gain of her previous owner. We came to have her because my 17 year old met her owners thru a mutual friend.

She found out that they were planning to put Peanut down, after all it had been a while since she had been any use to them, and well, it was just time. This went over like a lead balloon with my daughter who took her on the spot, despite knowing that I didn't want any more animals.

We already seemed to be at maximum capacity for living organisms, 2 fish, a husky, an overly large chocolate lab, 2 black cats (they adopted me) and one tiny gray one that I adopted, a 4yr old, a 5 year old, a 17 year old and two adults. I also have never made it a secret that I don't particularly care for small yappy dogs. Well. Within minutes of Peanuts entrance into our lives I completely understood why my daughter did what she did. For as old as she is she is actually spry! I just love her little stiff legged strut!

She is also sweet and lovable and just plain charismatic. None of us could believe her other family had wanted to throw her away! Now that you know her history let me tell you about her totally preventable near death experience.

When she first got here she was fat and lethargic. As she became happier she slimmed down and started to be more playful. After she had been here for a few months she went into what seemed to be heat. There was no blood, but all the other symptoms were there. I have never had a dog that didn't come from a shelter before, so came to me either spayed or neutered, but I assumed that this must be her last heat and due to her age wasn't a full one. As she came out of it I noticed that she seemed a little bloated. Otherwise she was acting normal, still drinking water and up and moving around, begging for people food (she's practically a junkie).

Pyometra is caused by stimulation of the uterus with abnormal levels of hormones (estrogen and progesterone) causing the lining of the uterus to become thickened and fluid to accumulate inside the uterus and/or the introduction of bacteria into the uterus when the opening to the uterus doesn't completely close. Not knowing anything about this, I decided to just keep my eye on her overnight. By 6am the following morning I realized that the bloating wasn't my imagination.

She was even more bloated and now still drinking a lot of water but showed no interest in food. I went on line and researched bloating in small dogs and got no where. The sites that fit my search criteria were like Q&A sites and none of the answers seemed to fit with my dogs symptoms. The one thing that did stand out was a few that seemed to have good info said to get her to the vet IMMEDIATELY. Even those didn't mention bloating in conjunction with Pyometra. Pregnancy was mentioned as well as blockage in the bowel and stomach.

Upon loading her into the car my daughter noticed that she was actually leaking puss. The poor thing wanted nothing to do with food and was drinking what seemed to be the equivalent of a small lake! When she arrived at the vet she was seen immediately. Within minutes we had the diagnosis.

Our choices at that point were to put her to sleep or go into surgery. Upon discussing the options with the vet we came to the conclusion that as long as she was fit for surgery we had to go for it. The whole idea of bringing her into our lives was to love her for as long as she was healthy and as long as the surgery went well she could have many good years left. Then it came down to the nitty gritty. The cost.

I suppose it all depends on where in the country you are located, whether it is an emergency situation and how good a relationship you have with your vet. Peanut cost us about six hundred dollars after all was said and done, but in Peanut's case the poison from her uterus had started to spread and the uterus itself was the size of a grapefruit! Considering that the whole dog isn't much bigger than a grapefruit, that's saying something! From what I gathered the surgery can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to about what we paid.

She recovered quickly and was spry as a ninety year old in no time!