Canelo’s Emergency Hospitalization

Canelo is a lovable and adorable 2 year old Rottweiler and Shepherd mix. He was chained at a young age, until we built him a kennel in April 2015. Canelo was doing well and enjoying his fenced in freedom, instead of living a dreadful life at the end of a chain. He had been losing weight and not being as happy-go-lucky when we visited him over the last couple of months. He seemed depressed and had a profound sadness in his eyes that would break your heart. On July, 19th, one of the members of CHAINED found Canelo listless in his doghouse and feared that he had died. Luckily, he had not. That day Canelo was taken to the vet and then sent to the hospital. After we took him to the vet, Canelo was surrendered. He has been hospitalized there since he was surrendered; which has been almost an entire month. The doctors are continuing to assess Canelo’s current health status to determine the cause of his problem. He has uncontrollable diarrhea even if he is lying down. It is so sad. He is so thin his ribs are showing since he cannot hold in the food that he consumes. The doctors are ruling out one condition after another; which means test after test after test. Needless to say, the hospital bills are escalating beyond a manageable sum. The costs will continue to increase until a diagnosis of our lovable Canelo is determined. Currently, his bills are over $3,000. Canelo had and abdominal ultra sound today and had an appointment with an internal medicine specialist. We will see what those results are and hope that a diagnosis and treatment have been determined. Hopefully, we are getting closer to the cause of Canelo’s weight loss, listlessness, constant diarrhea, and anemia. Once a final diagnosis is determined, Canelo will still need hospital care to get him better and back on his paws and back to his happy-go-lucky self. We can’t wait to see those beautiful eyes shine again! Please donate to help pay for Canelo’s continuing care. CHAINED does not have the funds to cover such costs, but we don’t want to delay in getting Canelo the continuing care he needs.

An update from our vet:

Canelo has chronic severe colitis/diarrhea, and we have not yet figured out the cause. He has a very

high white blood cell count, which may or may not be related, and moderate anemia, which is probably

due to blood loss in his diarrhea. He also has some mildly increased kidney numbers and is retaining

urine. He is on 2 medications to help him urinate more normally and we may be adding a third

medication. We have ruled out pancreatitis, pancreatic insufficiency, malabsorptive diarrhea, intestinal

parasites, leptospirosis and Addison’s disease. We are waiting on the results of a urine culture to screen

for bladder/kidney infection. We are treating him symptomatically right now to try to stop the diarrhea

(special diet, probiotics, Tylan antibiotic powder , Vit.B12 injections and subcutaneous fluids), keep him

eating (famotidine), and facilitate normal urination (flomax, diazepam, +/- bethanechol).He received an ultrasound yesterday. Ultimately he may need an intestinal biopsy to get his condition diagnosed so we can treat it appropriately.