Paws Worthy News, July 2025 Animal Hospital of Statesville

Our new CSRs! From left to right: Will, Ashton, Hannah (no, she's not new!) and Ella! Please welcome them - they have a TON of things to learn over the next few months, so please be patient as they do their best to help you!

A South Iredell High school graduate, Ashton then went on to Mitchell Community College to earn her Associate of Arts in Biology and Psychology. Her dog, Bella, is her only pet (we ALL started that way)! Ashton enjoys family time and swimming. We hope there is a good pool to utilize these past few REALLY HOT days! Please help Ashton feel welcome at AHS!

Ella is a Statesville Christian High School graduate. She has a Dutch Shephered and a Tzuchon - any guesses there? :) Ella is another avid swimmer, and she enjoys hanging out with friends and being outdoors. Please welcome her to our AHS family!

Will is a South Iredell High School graduate who later went on to UNCC to earn his Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Religious Studies. He's well-traveled, having gone on several mission trips to places like NYC, Denver and even Nairobi, Kenya. His fur-family consists of a black Lab and a Chihuahua. Will loves music, gaming and having a great time at Carowinds with his friends, as often as he can go! He plans to continue his education and earn his Master's in Christian Counseling. Please help him survive being surround by all these women...brave soul...

Because she has such an extensive history of infections, we are using her for the Pet of the Month to show the significance of diagnostics and rechecks in treating infections. Since she has been coming to us, she has had 16 ear swab cytology tests performed. These tests help us to determine what type of ear infection is present to help us determine what treatment we need to consider. It is not the same as a culture, but we can use the swabs to look under the microscope and, based on the shape of the bacteria (rod v. cocci) or the presence of yeast or white blood cells, the cytology can tell us a lot about what kind of infection she has! Some dogs tend to have one type of infection over and over, but any dog can have different organisms with different infections, so it is very important to do the swabs to determine the proper treatment to use with each infection. It is also necessary to help determine if the infection is improved during a follow-up visit.

There are different medication choices for rod vs. cocci, bacteria vs. heavy yeast, or whether there is the presence of heavy debris in the ears, or not. It is very important to do that initial exam to try to assess the health and stability of the eardrum before choosing medications. The initial exam and cytology is a key component to guide us in the right direction, but the follow-up exam is also extremely important and often gets pushed aside by many people when they see that their dog (or cat) looks and feels better with treatment. Many people assume the infection is cleared and cancel their follow-up exam, but this could be a big mistake!

The majority of medications we use to treat ear infections have a steroid in the medication, so it makes the dog (or cat!) feel much better before the infection is cleared. Also, a dog's ear canal is much longer than you realize, so even if the ear looks clean and nice on the outside, it may not be fully cleared up deeper down in the canal. Many types of "mixed" ear infections can have yeast and bacteria and while one medication may clear up one aspect very well, the other part of the infection may need a different medication to fully clear up the infection. If a pet still has infection deeper in the canal, they may seem better for a while, but then the infection will get worse again and the symptoms will return much more quickly. This can make someone feel like their pet constantly has infections that don't go away, but we may not have had enough treatment adjustments to get the best outcome.

Many allergy dogs will have recurrent ear infections, so even if you do the proper treatment and follow-ups, eventually they will have an infection again. The follow-up visits help make sure each infection is fully cleared to hopefully lengthen the time in between infections as much as possible. But also as important is the education we can provide at those follow-up visits when we are helping determine what type of home care would be the best plan to keep those infections from coming back so frequently. When the infection is finally cleared, we can show owners how to properly clean and instruct how often to clean for their pet's situation. Allergy dogs like Mya can use all the help they can get to give them the best comfort and quality of life in between flare-ups!