American Bulldog Fights On Following Foxtail Fiasco

After reading about Duncan, the West Highland white terrier’s foxtail story in the latest edition of The Companion, Mona Frarey of Rancho Cordova, Calif., wanted to share her own foxtail story involving her American Bulldog, Diesel.

The 18-month saga began one evening following dinner when Marilyn noticed Diesel was licking his paws for an unusually long time. Upon inspection, Mona noticed Diesel’s paws and forelegs and the carpet below were all blood-soaked and the blood was dripping from Diesel’s mouth to his legs. Since the American Bulldog was not very keen on his owner holding his jaws open, and she couldn’t pinpoint the wound, Mona immediately rushed Diesel to the nearest 24-hour emergency clinic.

After sedating Diesel, the veterinarians at the clinic found that he had a lacerated artery at the far recess on the underside of his tongue. Feeling a sense of relief now that the bleeding had stopped and he was being stitched up, Mona returned home to clean up and locate whatever it was that Diesel had chewed on that caused him to lacerate the artery. Unfortunately, she found nothing to account for the injury in either the yard or the house.

Diesel healed successfully and all seemed well for the next year-and-a-half until Mona came home from work one evening to find pools of blood scattered throughout the house and Diesel with blood once again dripping from his mouth. Mona rushed him back to the clinic where the veterinarians found a sizeable tumor at the site of his previous tongue arterial wound that appeared to be cancerous. The doctors recommended surgery by a specialist since removing the tumor around the artery was such a risky procedure.

Faced with the upsetting news, Mona took Diesel home and decided to get a second opinion from her regular veterinarian before agreeing to the emergency surgery. After describing the two previous emergencies with her veterinarian, he put Diesel under anesthesia and examined him with Mona sitting nearby. “I was able to see for myself how awful the mass and lesions appeared,” said Mona. “The vet said he would be able to remove the tumor and would begin surgery immediately. I was excused and left Diesel in capable hands hoping for the best possible outcome.”

Unfortunately, Diesel’s mouth started bleeding again the next day and he was taken back to the veterinarian. With the cone of shame firmly around his neck, the veterinarian discovered that Diesel had torn out his stitches and had been scraping the underside of his tongue across the lower front teeth trying to rid himself of the tumor. The veterinarian immediately re-stitched the wound with much heavier material and took the added measure of grinding down Diesel’s sharp incisors until they were perfectly smooth.

A couple of days later, the foxtail saga took another dramatic turn when Mona received a call from the veterinarian who couldn’t wait to relay the pathology report results. To Mona’s delight, the tumor was not cancerous after all. Instead, the lab discovered that the large mass contained plant material at its center. Diesel had a foxtail on his tongue, and the mass had formed around it.

“Whether the seed had originally pierced the artery under the tongue or Diesel had sliced it on his own teeth in an effort to rid himself of the painful invader, I can’t answer,” said Mona. “But the realization is that the long, painful, and costly ordeal might not have happened if the foxtail was discovered earlier.”

Despite a frustrating and scary ordeal, Mona finds it understandable for the veterinarians to have not realized that a foxtail was the source of this trouble. “It’s hard to lay blame since I doubt many dogs have managed to get a foxtail embedded in the underside of their tongue,” said Mona. “Now that’s a tongue piercing for the record.”

After racking up two emergency trips to the clinic, numerous veterinarian visits, surgeries, stitches and a pathology report, Mona is thankful she had pet insurance to help alleviate some of the bills that resulted from Diesels’ foxtail fiasco. “What is most important is that Diesel made a full recovery,” said Mona. “I was fortunate to have a pet insurance policy in place. VPI Pet Insurance covered the majority of the cost of all of Diesel’s emergencies, surgeries and medicines.”

For more information on foxtails, visit the VPI Pet HealthZone at  http://www.petinsurance.com/healthzone/pet-articles/pet-health/Foxtails-and-Pets.aspx.