At my wits' end (fever)

[Deleted]

Feel free to skip to the last paragrah if you want to save time.

Our boxer/pit bull mix, 8, is generally healthy and strong. But over his life, he has spiked fevers combined with vomiting/loose poo. It comes on suddenly and used to happen once a year or so. In the last year it's happened 4-5 times. We've previously loosely associated it with changes in diet. Each time, we take him to the vet (3 or 4 different ones), he gets an antibiotic shot, some antibiotic pills, fluids (depending on how high the fever is) and they do a full bood panel and find absolutely nothing wrong. No infection, no indications of cancer, nothing.

This morning, he shivered a little, which is the first sign, so I took his temp. Thankfully, it was 101.6, so we thought we were in the clear and he was just cold. Tonight he refused his Canidae, so I just took it again and it's 102.7. If past experience serves it will be 104 to 105 by tomorrow morning, if not sooner :-( This time there has been no change in diet.

My working theory has been some sort of IBS, so we've been super careful not to change his food or protein lately. I'm just hoping for any additional thoughts on what this might be. He did have a cancer lump about 6 years ago, but the surgeon got it with clean margins and it hasn't reoccured as far as we know. Anything you can suggest I'd love to bring up with our vet.

I'm not taking him to the e-vet right now for 102.7, but I am going to monitor closely. Anything you can suggest to keep it down until our vet opens at 8?

What temp should I take him to the e-vet no matter what? Online seems to say 104, 105 or 106. I've been really lucky so far that we've mostly been able to make it to the regular vet. In the e-vet situations it wasn't really a choice, so it was an easy decision. It'll be a $500 min. for the e-vet, probably more. It will be $200 or less for regular, depending on if we do bloodwork again. We can afford it, but it is a very unpleasant hit to us, especially after all the other trips this year, and we'd have to take him to the regular vet tomorrow for followup.

[Deleted]

OK well, crisis possibly averted for tonight. It's back to 101.7. I'll probably set the alarm for twice tonight just to monitor. He did vomit once and he's still shivering a bit. I think we'll do boiled chicken tomorrow. I did give him a probiotic this evening and that's when his temp started going down instead of up. There's no way that helped that quickly, right?

I'd still welcome any ideas to bring up with my vet. I just want him to feel better :-(

[junieolive]

My dog(Junie) never spiked a fever, but she used to have loose bowel movements quite frequently, usually related to change or stress. When I say change, I mean such as moving the furniture around, she's a little anxiety prone. I started to give her plain nonfat yogurt in her food once a day and she has had almost no problems since then. It's been almost 2 years and she has only had a little problem once. This was a dog who had issues at least once a month. I will say, we also gave it to our other dog (Olive) at the same time and she vomited and had diarrhea for days. So now only Junie gets the yogurt. It could be something to try. I hope your pup feels better!

[Deleted]

Thank you very much. Noodle did end up at 104 and at the vet Mon. morning, and he's back on antibiotics. His temp. was back to 101 within 2 hours of receiving the antibiotic shot. I'm going to start a daily probiotic just as soon as the antibiotics are over; I think that will do the same thing as yogurt? On the plus side, we talked to the vet about how we can treat at home when the regular vet isn't open, and he gave us an extra course of antibiotics in case it happens again. I feel a lot better now that we have a plan in place for what to do at what temperature. I'm hoping it won't happen again, but if it does, I feel better prepared now. I just wish we could get an explanation.

[junieolive]

The probiotic should do the same thing. I am sorry that Noodle needed to go to the vet. Unfortunately you may never get an explanation. I hope the probiotics help! Good luck!