If you have dogs long enough you will probably see many different illnesses and conditions.  Pyometra was one we fortunately had not encountered until this weekend.

Pyometra is a uterine infection so can only happen to intact female dogs.  Thus if your female  dog is a pet, not being shown or used for breeding, spaying them will prevent this from happening.    Here are a couple of links if you want to learn more:

http://www.squidoo.com/pyometra

http://petcare.suite101.com/article.cfm/pyometra

One of our pugs, Sprite, had been in season earlier in the month.  A couple of days ago I noted that she seemed a little droopy and was not eating as quickly as usual.  Next she started drinking huge amounts of water, to the point she was obsessed with the water bowl and would drink until I either removed her or the bowl from the area.  I knew this was not normal behavior and could be the first sign of pyometra so I started taking her temperature.  Her temperature remained normal but yesterday she didn’t eat her breakfast at all, again, very unlike her.   I checked on her a couple of hours later and her bowl still had breakfast in it so I picked her up and really looked her over.  It was then that I saw drainage from her vulva that looked like pus.  It was a Sunday (of course, any vet emergency I have usually involves a weekend or holiday….sigh…..) so my regular vet was closed.  There are several emergency animal clinics and a vet school within 20 min.

The vet school recently opened a 24/7 emergency clinic so since they’d seen Sprite there before (for eye surgery) I opted to take her there.  Bloodwork was run and an abdominal x-ray done which confirmed a suspicion of pyometra.  There are two types of pyometra — open (where the cervix is open and drainage can flow out of the uterus) and closed (the cervix is closed so infection is contained in the uterus which is much more dangerous and can lead to toxicty and death rapidly).   Sprite’s type was fortunately “open pyometra”.   The option was to have them call in a surgical team and immediately spay her (only cure) at a huge cost or have her stay overnight and they would give her an IV and IV antibiotics then I could move her to my vet’s in the a.m. as they could spay her for less.  I decided, based on the fact her labwork showed infection but no toxicity, to bring her home on antibiotics, monitor her all night myself then drive her to my vet in the a.m. for surgery.

I got her to my vet shortly after they opened.  The vet school had already faxed all the lab work and info.  My vet immediately took her to surgery after starting an IV and giving her IV antibiotics (this is important to do).  A little over an hour later he called me to tell me surgery was over and she was doing fine, even sitting up already.   Her uterus was 6 to 7 times its normal size due to the infection so it was a good thing I got her right in.

She is home tonight and doing well.  I am thankful I realized what was going on right away and had the knowledge to know what to do for her.