TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME
in Tucker's memory

Dear Bouv Listers,

Since this topic has been raised on the list, I will add my experience with this. It is hard to write and I have put it off now for 4 weeks. I am sorry it is so long but prefer to give details in case it can help anyone recognize the symptoms and try to prevent this happening to their dog.

Just 4 weeks ago today we lost our Bouv Tucker to TSS.  On Wed. evening we took Tucker and his brother to obed. practice. He was full of energy and responded well to a new treat I introduced, commercially prepared venison jerky. At bedtime he was somewhat uncomfortable and I needed to let him out an extra time; he then settled down and slept through the night. The next morning when I did cleanup in the yard, I noticed his bedtime stool was very soft, unusual for him.

On Thurs. morning, he ate well. He was somewhat subdued, but this was not unusual after the excitement of practicing obed. in a place with lots of dogs and strangers. About 4:30 pm Tucker vomited his breakfast. I offered him a reduced amount of kibble for his dinner but he refused it. My thought was that the venison had not sat well on his stomach, although his brother (a full littermate) had suffered no ill effects.

Around bedtime, Tucker started vomiting. At first this was mostly bile, then it became streaked with blood. Later, it became almost purely blood, and he passed blood from his rectum (no fecal matter at all). I called the vet-on-call (all the vets here take turns being on call). He said it was not unusual to see blood in cases on gastroenteritis and to give him pedialyte ( which I was already doing) and Maalox (which I sent my husband out for a 3:30 am) and to bring him in to the office first thing. He vomited the Maalox, but then seemed to ease and didn't vomit again.

The vet office opens at 8:30 and we were early. Tucker had vomited once more in the van, but walked to the van and into the office. His temp. was high, the vet diagnosed a bacterial infection and gave us Metronidazole and carafate as well as a type of pedialyte product esp. for dogs. He also gave Tucker an injection of something to settle the stomach and allow it to rest--he said it would make the dog very drowsy.

Tucker slept most of the day. Toward evening I started getting worried as he seemed more heavily sedated instead of coming out of the drowsiness and it was difficult to get the medicine and pedialyte down. My husband and I were debating what to do. I walked into another room. My husband (who had stayed home from work to help with Tucker) saw him stretch his legs, he knelt and caressed his side and spoke to him and Tucker died.

I must explain that Tucker was my special baby. He was the one who was born blind in one eye and developed glaucoma at 1 1/2 and juvenile cataracts in the good eye shortly thereafter. He kept an eye on me always and slept in his bed on the floor beside me at night. He had a spectacular Bouv bounce!!

He was only 4 1/2 years old when he died.

The vet was astounded that he died. He have us information so we could contact Purdue University's Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, a branch of which is an hour and a half drive away, and we took his body there for the autopsy. They found he has aspirated some vomit into the lungs, not enough for pneumonia to develop but enough that they could identify e-coli in the lung tissue. Their results: Toxic shock and septicemia.

We still don't know how this happened. He received nothing the other dogs did not. Did his immune system just fail? He had two hot spots I had been treating, but the vets believe it was something he ingested. Everyone is telling us that dog food and dog treats can contain large amounts of e-coli bacteria, that deer and rabbit droppings may contain large amounts of it as well. Our local vet doesn't believe the venison was ingested early enough to be the culprit but suggested we not give any more of it to the dogs (I had already decided this!!!!).

 He is buried in the shady part of our back yard, facing the house so he can keep an eye on us.  Our other dogs have not become ill, so evidently it was something affecting only Tucker, but I wonder how many dogs have died of this without anyone being aware that this was the cause.

Hug your  fur-kids & remember our Tucker

Pat Robertson and Mark Zacharias