Welcome to the “Health and Welfare�segment of the Newsletter. It is hoped that DCA members will submit ideas for this section of the magazine as well as articles about experiences pertaining to the healthcare of their dogs that will be of interest to other readers.
Please send ideas, suggestions and articles to the Dachshund Club of America Newsletter Editor. This is a story about Thorn, a patient of Drs. Portner and Berkowitz of the Emergency and Critical Care team along with Dr. Tracy, our Neurologist and Dr. Lewis, our veterinary Dentist. Submitted by Trudy Kawami
About Thorn: Thorn presented to Dr. Portner of the Emergency and Critical Care team on referral from another emergency and specialty hospital for treatment of suspected Tetanus infection. At the time of presentation, he was a 20 week old, intact male, dachshund puppy who had sustained a fall from the couch 5 days prior. The day after the fall he was a little lethargic and then progressively started to become more and more stiff throughout the weekend. Thorn was seen at another emergency and referral hospital, but was referred to us at NorthStar VETS for continued treatment and care under the expertise of our Emergency and Critical Care doctors. Tetanus: Tetanus occurs when spores from the bacterium Clostridium tetani. Spores are very hardy and can be found commonly in the environment, especially in soil and can survive
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Dachshund Club of America Winter 2020
for years under certain conditions. When spores are introduced into a wound that provides an anaerobic environment, allowing the spores to become vegetative, and produce tetanospasmin, the toxin responsible for the severe neurologic clinical signs that we see. Clinical signs usually develop within 5 to 10 days from the inoculating wound, but up to 18 days has been reported. Tetanus in dogs is very uncommon (even more uncommon in cats) because dogs and cats have a natural resistance to the effects of tetanospasmin; localized clinical signs are more common than generalized tetanus, likely owing to this inherent resistance. It takes nearly 200 times the amount of toxin for a dog to be affected than a human and 3,600 times the amount of toxin for a cat. Thorn presented with very classic signs of generalized tetanus including severe trismus, and we could only open his mouth a couple of millimeters, his ears
