Not to be gross...but

[RubyDoo]

I took my 14 month old female boxer to the vet yesterday. Since her first heat, 8 weeks ago, her bottom is still swoolen and so are some of her nipples. She also has a slimey discharge. Is this normal???? The vet said she looked fine, but if she has any other symptoms, to bring her back in...fever, not eating, yellow discharge,etc. But is that clear discharge normal??? (My other female dogs didn't do that.)

Thanks, but I just had to ask the boxer experts!!

 

[Kenosmom]

I don't want to scare you, but it *might* be pyometra (infection in her uterus)...our Jack Russell had that happen to her two weeks before she was scheduled to be spade...she ended up having emergency surgery which cost us a fortune...our vet explained it to us like this: she had a false pregnancy right after we brought Keno home and what happens sometimes with these false pregnancies is that when the uterus expands and then attempts to go back to it's original size sometimes an infection becomes trapped in her uterus...Daisy got very sick one day (a few days after the discharge started) and was burning up with fever...we rushed her to the vet and the put her on IV fluids to get her fever down..the next day she had her surgery...it's a life threatening infection and not something to take lightly at all...we thought we were gonna lose her because she was so sick and lifeless...after her surgery she was back to her old hyper self and had no complications (thankfully)....
I would say that if she shows any other signs of having pyometra (fever,lathargy,panting,etc) get her in to the vet ASAP....
Here's an article on Pyometra http://www.thepetcenter.com/sur/pyo.html
Hope this helps
Good Luck & let us know how she's doing

 

[jaimie]

It could also be vaginitis, but with the swollen nipples I am not too sure. If you are ever in doubt don't think twice about getting a second opinion. I had a doubt about Baylee's bladder problems and just went with the flow she ended up having a ruptured bladder a few weeks later. She was a mess and we weren't sure if she was going to make it. She ended up being ok in the end and we still have her now. But, I really wish I had a second opinion then maybe we wouldn't have so many problems with her incontinence?.

 

[Shanz]

just wondering if you ever had this cleared up?
My GSD had just one swollen nipple that had a yellowish discharge.. the vet thought it could be mastitis (sp?) anyway she sent us homewith med and it cleared up until the meds were done and it came back. Turned out she had a tumour from over-active hormones due to not being spade...ended up having emergency surgery-tumours removed (they found another tumour during the surgery) and a biopsy done.. cost us a fortune but she came back cancer free thank god.

 

[RubyDoo]

OOps! I thought I had replied to this post. Sorry

Ruby seems to be doing fine. My husband took her to our regular vet on Monday. She said Ruby had a slight temp and had signs of an infection. I asked my husband for specifics, but all he recalled was that it was a female infection....go figure! Anyway, she is on antibiotics for that. The vet also thinks she had a false pregnancy because she had a little milk.
She seems to be doing fine now though, because she getting into EVERYTHING and she isn't sleeping as much.
Thanks so much for checking on her!
I appreciate everyone's info, although yes, it was scary. Notice: We took her for a second opinion.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Kenosmom]

So glad that Ruby is doing better now..I know how stressful and scary it is when they are sick...
sounds like she had the same problem that our Daisy had, except I think Daisy's infection must have been worse and that's why she was having the discharge and had to have the emergency surgery...we actually tried an antibiotic to see if it would clear the infection up, but I think it was already too far gone by then and nothing except surgery was going to help...
Does your vet plan to spay Ruby as soon as she is over the infection? I would highly recommend it because everytime she has a false pregnancy and has an infection in her uterus it increases her chances of developing cancer...not to mention it's much much cheaper to have them spay when there's no infection going on (a routine spay by our vet would have been $100 but since she had the infection (pyometra) it ended up costing us $400++)...

Good Luck !