Deafness

Can any more happen to my girl? I hope not, unless it is getting healthy, healthy, healthy!

We took an extended weekend trip to south central Oregon, in the middle of nowhere where heat is the king...or is it deer flies?...or mosquitoes? Surprising, considering the conditions, it is an amazing area. We were in Paisley on Summer Lake which during the summer is dry. Nearby are natural hot springs, petroglyphs, bat caves, ice caves, big holes in the ground, birding, hiking, and mountain biking. I'm sure there is even more, but the heat prevented anything but a minimum of exploration or movement. The meteor showers weren't that spectacular, but sitting outside in a natural hot spring adds to the event, so one could hardly complain.

In the above picture taken at the cabin we stayed at in Paisley, Lucy looks alert and as if she can hear me. I doubt it. She was so sick there, or maybe it was just the unbearable heat, but she slept for nearly two days. On the way home, we stopped to do a quick ride around Timothy Lake near Mt. Hood. Lucy stayed in the van which parked under an umbrella of trees. When we returned from our ride, I let her out to join us for a swim in the lake.

It was then we realized Lucy had lost hearing in her other ear. There was no head shaking, no scratching, no tilting of the head, just plain no hearing. I felt like the bad dog owner with an ill-trained pooch. She would walk off and I'd call and she didn't respond.

I wasn't sure if the antibiotics she's taking for pneumonia could have caused the hearing loss, but when I spoke with the vet, she said no. She wanted Lucy back in, but what would they do? We'd just incurred huge vet expenses and I wasn't eager for more if they weren't absolutely necessary. She (Lucy) gave no sign of discomfort. By the time she was home, her energy and appetite were back, she's on two different wide-spectrum antibiotics—wouldn't they take care of any infection? The vet said probably, but told me to bring her in if anything in her demeanor changed.

We're using hand signals to communicate with her. Thank heavens she's been trained on them since a puppy. We just have to make sure she's looking our way. And once again, it reinforces the necessity for always having her on a leash. If it is an infection, the antibiotics should take care of it and her hearing will return. If it isn't...well, we'll have to work diligently at keeping her world interesting, stimulating and safe!