What a horrible, horrible day we had yesterday. I have noticed that Maggie has been licking her paws a lot lately (which usually is a sign of allergies in dogs) so I have been giving her Benadryl off and on to help. Then I took a better look at her foot (she has lots of "powder puff" hair on her paws that makes it hard to really see it) and noticed that she seemed to have an infection on one of her toes. So I cut all of the hair off of her paw and began putting hydrogen peroxide on it and wrapping it in gauze and an Ace bandage to keep her from licking it more so it could heal. Well, yesterday I took her bandage off and poor dog....her toenail came OFF! I called the vet immediately and went in to the office. They took a look at all of her toenails and the insides of them all looked abnormal so they ran bloodwork on her. (They also told me that hydrogen peroxide irritates and inflames infections in dogs) Well, the vet just called this morning and said that Maggie has an autoimmune disease like Lupus that attacks her paws and toenails. I feel so bad for her :(. So we are getting her on steroids and some other medications right now and then will have to manage this for the rest of her life. Poor Maggie, she is such a good dog. Hopefully, the treatment will be effective and she will go on as normal because they said that the worst case scenario is that all of her toenails will continue to get infected and fall off which could cause lameness and even amputation in some cases. :( :( :( :( :(
