My wife and I live in a lodgepole pine/aspen forest in the Rocky Mountains in Conifer, Colorado and our little yorkie-mix (rescue dog) is now being treated for a grass-awn abscess that nearly closed off her throat. She had been hungry, but couldn’t swallow. In fact, she couldn’t even bark.

We took her to a reputable Denver animal hospital where they anesthetized her, found a palpable mass in her throat area that they first thought may have been a thyroid mass and then noticed that there was a reddened area in her throat that was draining some pus and they also were able to see a (tiny) grass awn via ultrasound. I’ve seen the captured image; no doubt that it’s an awn and it matches the appearance of awns on our property. They suggested surgery to extract the awn (located about 2 cm down from behind her left ear), but it was in an anatomically dangerous area (optic nerve, windpipe, etc., etc.), so their suggestion was filled with caveats. They also told us they could “manage” the awn even if it remained in place (or even if it migrated). We chose not to have the surgery done because they had told us there were even no guarantees they could find and remove it. Risk-benefit way too high.

Anyway, at the moment, she’s recovering nicely with clindamycin and Baytril and is almost back to her normal self.

However, and it’s a big “however,” I’ve very concerned about what will transpire from his point forward because the vet is no longer talking about management of the condition. She’s told us she wants to stop antibiotics after four weeks and then see what happens.

So here’s what I’d like to know: can the antibiotics “cure” this for good or will the awn possibly be able to harbor/hide bacteria that will have the ability to re-infect once antibiotics are stopped?

And then, additionally, I’d like to know if something like antibiotic maintenance therapy can be used wherein we just keep her on a low dose of antibiotics to prevent future infections.

I would love to be able to have Dr. Mills (above) give me some advice on this, but I don’t see any contact option available for him here.

Thank you so much!

Rob Timmons
rimmonz@gmail.com

Thank you,
Erika Werne
Director of Education & Communications
AKC Canine Health Foundation

Thank you for stopping by. I would love for you to write an article for the site to share your knowledge!

UPDATE: Thanks to Dr. Pat McInteer and Dr. Mills for sharing an article that they co-wrote previously on this subject. See Pages links from the Home page.