I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I love keeping up with the lives of my friends and family, Amazon and I are family now, and I do look at reviews of restaurants before I decide to try a new one. But the people of Colorado take it to the next level. I live in Colorado part of the year, and they literally will sell a container of protein powder with one scoop missing and someone buys it. I saw someone purchase a used toilet plunger the other day.
To acclimate myself to my new neighborhood, I joined the local community Facebook group. I see a lot of the same issues as I see in Florida: The community pool is too cold, the community pool is too hot, and nonstop talk about swim diapers. I need a few items that some people like to sell or give away, so I spend a little too much time on the Facebook group. One day, a person put out a question about her Dachshund rubbing her nose excessively on the lawn and whether anyone else had that problem.
I read responses describing pets with environmental allergies to grasses, weeds, and trees, to one woman who proclaimed that she was a 50-year Dachshund owner/expert and sent a link about the history of Dachshunds being burrowing animals. One person sent a link about the types of mites found in the lawns and how they could irritate a dog, especially one so low to the ground.
After about an hour, the owner of the Dachshund posted that her dog was starting to scratch her ears and lick her paws excessively. Within a minute she had comments and links to shampoos, lotions, and Benadryl doses for dogs. I was hoping that with the posts, she was going to call her veterinarian or bring the dog to the hospital if the Dachshund was that uncomfortable. In the following half-hour, there were more than 30 responses from neighbors, each one blaming something that could be easily treated with a home remedy. At the hour mark, the owner wrote that the dog was starting to look puffy, and she was very uncomfortable. Before I could even comment, there were a dozen comments about doubling the dose of Benadryl, ice packs, cold baths, and one person even talked about rubbing steroid cream on the muzzle.
I decided to private-message the owner. I explained to her that I am a veterinarian and asked her to send me a picture of her dog, Sadie. The Dachshund’s muzzle and head were huge — at least twice the size of normal. I asked her to take a picture of the inside of her lips, and I could see the spot where Sadie had been bitten by a bee or wasp, and I noticed that her tongue was slightly blue, a clear sign of cyanosis. I told her to go immediately to her veterinarian because Sadie was having an anaphylactic reaction.
At the veterinary hospital, they gave her intravenous steroids, along with IV fluids, and put her in an oxygen cage because her oxygen saturation was low. Sadie did great, and she was discharged later in the day. When I saw that the owner of Sadie posted later in the night, I was hoping that she would post that you should call your veterinarian first because sometimes the speed of treatment can be essential to treatment, but she didn’t. She thanked me personally and told the Facebook group that a new veterinarian had moved into the area and that he really helped her.
So much for staying anonymous.