When we got Obie last month there was pink around both eyes and the hair grew in around one eye, but the other one kept losing hair. When Doctor Dan gave him shots and checked him the first time it really wasn’t that noticeable. When we took him back for his second round of shots this past week  his vet then got a little concerned so we have him on an antibiotic called Cephalexin.

When I checked out the Cephalexin I found that it is FDA approved for humans, but not animals however it is widely used by all vets for bacterial infections.  He has been on it for 2 days and he does fine with the first dose because I give it to him soon after he eats, but the second dose he has been rejecting. These are in capsule form and at first it was hard to get him to swallow it even though I put it as far back as possible and kept his mouth shut and massaged his throat.

The easy way is to put it in a spoon full of applesauce, tilt his head back and it slides nicely down his throat. Applesauce is not harmful to dogs like chocolate and some other fruits for those that are wondering. The applesauce or jello technique also works well for you humans that have a hard time swallowing pills. I had to look up the side effects and the most common is of course vomiting shortly after giving it to them .

It’s usually not a sign of any serious disease, but it does indicate that your pet is sensitive to Cephalexin so since Obie doesn’t throw up the first dose with food in his belly I’ll just have to change his feeding times for the next 5 days and give him 3 meals a day and see if that works for us. If this doesn’t help his poor little eye then the next step is to take a scraping and see if it’s a mite. He hasn’t rubbed or scratched his eye at all since we got him so I really don’t think it will be  mites.

Cephalexin isn’t effective against infections caused by mites, viruses, fungi, or parasites (intestinal worms). Mites cause mange which makes the hairloss, but there are no sores, he doesn’t itch and there’s no ozzing of any sort. All we can do is wait for now and see if the Cephalexin kicks in. March 15th the poor little guy is going to be chipped and clipped (neutered) he’ll be 6 months old then, he’s really such a nice little guy and the vet is very impressed with him and so are we.

We’re very happy he’s sharing our home. If anyone has been through something like this with their pet I would love to hear your input.