My dog has Achromobacter, antibiotic not helping. What can I do?

In dogs, currently erythromycin is considered the drug of choice in treating campylobacter. That being said, we are seeing cases with drug resistance with this bacteria, so ideally a culture and sensitivity is performed to determine the best drug in each individual situation. This is a bacteria that can also make humans ill, so precautions should be taken to prevent transmission including good hygeine/hand washing and avoiding the pet being around people with suppressed immune systems. You can read more about this disease at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=2232 and https://www.cdc.gov/campylobacter/index.html

There is not enough information here for me to properly help you. If a vet, in person, has not been able to help you I don't think us, over the internet without examining the dog or knowing the history, will be able to help you. My recommendation would be to get a second opinion from another vet if your current vet is unable to help you. If he is unresponsive to antibiotic therapy the type of antibiotic may need to be changed or he may need to be on a couple antibiotics at the same time. Not to scare you but cancer is VERY common in Boxers and being that he is older and he is not responding to therapy I would have this a differential diagnosis. I don't know what diagnostic testing has been done (if any) but that is often important. If you don't allow any testing to be done the vet is only doing his/her best to guess what might help. Some things cannot be fixed without testing. Regardless of all that, it sounds like his condition is very serious and that he may be suffering. If nothing can be figured out then you may need to consider humane euthanasia if his quality of life is not good. Of course, you know him best and I am just speculating but you should have that in the back of your mind if treatment is failing to cure him. I am sorry you are going through this. I hope this was helpful. If you have more questions please feel free to ask again. Best wishes.

Unfortunately, without an exam it would be impossible to determine what medication is best, and medication can't be prescribed without an exam anyway. A skin scraping of the affected skin areas to see if it is mange, bacterial, etc, can help determine what treatment to give. Bloodwork to rule out other health issues that also need to be treated is also best.

It is difficult for me to give you much advice without having more information but I will try my best. His skin may be getting worse due to an idiosyncratic drug reaction. The antibiotics may not be agreeing with him. A change to a different class of antibiotic may be all that is needed. The antibiotic he was prescribed may not be the correct one for this particular bacterial infection (if it is a bacterial infection). A culture and sensitivity of the crusty lesions on the head may need to be done in order to find out what bacteria are there and what antibiotic will be most effective. This may be a fungal skin infection (or yeast) and not a bacterial infection) hence why the antibiotic is not working. Antibiotics do not treat fungus or yeast. In young dogs I would be worried that this is a secondary infection of the skin from mange mites. It can be seen in older dogs as well but it is much more common in youngsters. So, I would have your vet do a skin scraping to check for mites. This could be an autoimmune disorder (like pemphigus). A biopsy of the affected area would be needed for diagnosis. That is all I can come up with right off the top of my head. I hope this helps to give you some things to bring up with your vet. Best wishes!

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. I am sorry to hear that Scotch is dealing with such a severe urinary tract infection! Unfortunately this is going to be quite the difficult case to manage due to such the resistance to antibiotics. In this case it would be worth trying a multi-antibiotic approach and you may need to resort to an antibiotic such as Amikacin, which can have adverse effects on the kidneys. Unfortunately, I see that Amikacin is also on the list of antibiotics that this is resistant to. There are more alternative methods of treatment such as ozone therapy in the bladder which may help kill the bacteria. I would discuss this further with your veterinarian as treatment will depend entirely on what the vet wants to use. Scotch may need to be admitted into the hospital for treatment for IV antibiotics as well. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

Poor Moca - he is having a tough time! A suspect pneumonia which has not responded to regular treatment should be x-rayed in order to determine any complicating factors and also be tested for parasites. A swab of fluid from the airways may also need to be cultured in order to determine the type of infection

I sympathize with you. Painful eyes are very difficult to deal with. The answer to your question depends on if the reason for the problem is that the antibiotics aren't working because of the type of bacteria or the underlying disease. Unfortunately, it is difficult to know that information. I think your best option would be to see a specialist. Veterinary ophthalmologists have 4 years of specialized training in treating only eyes, so they have a much greater knowledge of eyes than normal vets. I actually took my 15 year old dog to a veterinary ophthalmologist last month because I want to avoid removing one of his eyes. She used medication that I have never used in my practice in 15 years and my dog is doing great now. I have included a link below for you to search for a veterinary ophthalmologist near you. http://member.acvo.org/search_results Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.