I would often go play with my mom’s dog, Micron, as he laid next to her in her bedroom. My dad would go to work and Micron would wake up and want to play. I would sit on the bed and move my hand around in front of him as his favorite play activity was to chase my fingers or my hand. Other times I would hug him and he would growl and jump away. I loved doing this.
At times Micron would even go outside with me and instead of insisting that he needed his mommy to go out with him, he’d use the bathroom for me.
My mom and I were not certain what was happening when one day Micron curled up on a blanket at the end of her bed and did not want to move. We took him outside to see if his stomach might be bothering him. We watched as he seemed to have trouble moving and he strained to use the bathroom.
We took him in and cuddled with him. We tried to give him his favorite foods. At first he would eat a few of them. He vomited quite often. However, soon, he only drank water from one certain cup. It came to a point when he wouldn’t even drink the water. However, he still vomited even though he had nothing to eat or drink.
We had to take him to the emergency veterinarian. He was diagnosed with a bacteria in his intestine that is found in all dirt. It is common in small dogs. They were able to give him some type of medicine that helped him for about a week. He had to have antibiotics and was also supposed to eat i/d dog food. However, he did not like that dog food and decided to eat other things.
Whenever he ran out of antibiotics, he got worse again and curled up on the blanket. He seems so small and frail. He was already a small dog, though bigger than a tiny chihuahua as he is a mix of chihuahua and dachshund (which my mom calls “chihuaxin”).
I was hoping to see the Micron that I knew and loved. It did not happen, so we had to take him to our regular veterinarian. They had to keep him over night and run many kinds of tests on him.
The veterinarian called while my mom was gone and I took down the information. The bacteria wasn’t what was wrong. We found out that Micron has Addison’s Disease.
Addison’s Disease is a rare endocrine disorder. It is where the adrenal gland does not produce enough amounts of steroid hormones. It can take awhile to show any of the signs. It can also develop in humans and other animals. It was named after Dr. Thomas Addison, the first physician to describe the condition.
Thankfully it is easy to treat. Micron has to take half a small cortisone pill every morning. My mom can hide this in a piece of cinnamon streusel cake. The veterinarian had Micron coming in every three months for a prednisone shot. With monitoring, so far Micron has now been able to go six months between prednisone shots.
Both cortisone and prednisone are steroids. Since Micron is now able to eat while on these medications, we can enjoy being with him again. It is fun to joke around and call him “a chihuahua on steroids.” The medicines certainly have given him lots of muscle so he is beefy, but not fat.
So, if your dog is vomiting, seems listless, and has trouble going to the bathroom, it may have Addison’s disease. This may be an option to discuss with your vet.
