Peppermint Patti
By Joel Thurtell
The squirrels are back to hiding in the trees behind our Plymouth, Michigan house since our dog, Patti, got cured of the rare malady she contracted last summer from hanging out around our cottage in McGregor Bay.
The Bay is in the northwest part of Georgian Bay, north of Lake Huron in Ontario.
We cottagers like to think of the Bay as a “quiet paradise,” but our heaven was hell for Patti after she breathed in spores of the fungus Blastomyces dermatitidis and caught a dreadful disease called blastomycosis.
Today, Patti is again the white bullet whose speedy blur we love to watch racing around our yard. But last August, we were desperate. Our U.S. veterinarians couldn’t figure out what was ailing her. We thought Patti was going to die.
Blastomycosis is endemic in Georgian Bay. It’s a fungus whose spores – when breathed by animals, including humans – go to the lungs. Nourished by blood and transported through arteries, blasto sets up shop on the skin, in eyes, bones and, in males, in testicles. Untreated or misdiagnosed, blastomycosis can cause blindness and death.
Blasto is not contagious. It occurs in other watery areas like the Mississippi Valley and Wisconsin as well as northern Ontario. Over the past few years, several dogs and one human have died of blasto in Georgian Bay.
Rare fungal diseases were far from our minds last May when my wife, Karen Fonde, and I loaded luggage and Patti into our boat at Birch Island. We were planning to relax and enjoy sailing, fishing, swimming, reading and the inspiring natural beauty of the Bay.
But we made a fateful return trip to Plymouth in June. Patti bounded across the lawn and suddenly started limping. A veterinarian said it was a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament. In English, she’d messed up her left hind knee. Patti needed surgery. So it was back to the Bay, then home again in Plymouth for Patti’s operation.
This 15-pound lapdog is no stranger to misfortune. We got her at the pound. She was a stray. Once, she nearly died from eating rat poison. Another time, she gobbled a huge chunk of chocolate, bad for dogs. She was again saved by an emergency vet. Yet another time, while chasing a squirrel, she impaled herself on a fallen branch.
Patti is our beloved companion. She is the best of all possible dogs. So there was no question about the ACL surgery. But I wonder if she would have contracted blasto if she had not been weakened by surgery.
We noticed her rasping cough about mid-July. It persisted, and her appetite waned. Soon after the ACL operation, we’d had to stop her from trotting around. By early August, she was barely walking.
On a late-July trip back to Plymouth, a veterinarian couldn’t account for her cough. He sent her home with cough medicine.
Still, she coughed. We took Patti to a second clinic in Michigan where they x-rayed her and saw something cloudy around her lungs.
Maybe it was pneumonia, maybe it was cancer, we were told. The vet could treat pneumonia, and prescribed an antibiotic. Little did we know, that was a bad idea.
Back in the Bay, in early August, Patti’s cough got worse despite despite or maybe because of the antibiotic. She seemed forever tired, wouldn’t eat, and she had pus-leaking sores on her back and near her mouth. Her eyes were clogged with mucous.
We were certain she was dying. I googled and found Dr. Cathy Seabrook, a Mindemoya veterinian. Dr. Seabrook later recalled her first sight of Patti: “She looked like she was having the worst headache in the world.”
Dr. Seabrook knew immediately what it was: blasto. It’s not common, but Island vets know blasto when they see it.
On the x-rays, Dr. Seabrook saw those cloudy areas around Patti’s lungs and called it a “snowstorm” – a signature of blasto.
“Blasto is multi-systemic — that’s why you’re seeing sores and infected eyes,” Dr. Seabrook said.
Misdiagnosing pneumonia is not uncommon when physicians and veterinarians have no experience with it. But antibiotics can encourage the growth of the blasto fungus, Dr. Seabrook said.
She was worried about Patti’s vision. Sometimes, dogs go blind from blasto. She prescribed drops to treat the disease and more drops to dilate her pupils so they wouldn’t lock permanently in a near-closed position. She prescribed an oral anti-fungal medicine that Patti took until mid-November.
Treatment was very expensive and Patti responded slowly. For a time, we were not sure if she would live. She had a double whammy – convalescing from knee surgery and fighting blasto. Movement seemed to pain her. But one time, the sight of a squirrel prompted several quick steps.
“She still wants to be a dog,” Karen said.
In August and into September, when Patti did walk, she’d bump into things. Was she partly blind?
How could this have happened in our quiet paradise?
We worried that even if Patti survived, she might be re-infected the following summer.
Should we abandon the Bay?
Gradually, she got better. By the middle of November, Patti was back to terrorizing squirrels.
And Dr. Seabrook gave us great news: A dog that survives blasto should be immune to further infection. So we’ll all be back next summer.
Did Patti lose some vision? Maybe. If so, she compensates by sniffing and listening.
Patti still wants to be a dog.
Just ask the squirrels.
I am so happy for Patti! And if your squirrels are like mine, they are happy too! My JRT (Jack Russell Terrier), Tinker/Stinker Belle, and BB (Boston Bull), Pugsly (Pugs and Ugly), get all of their exercise trying to catch a squirrel, or the ducks when they are here on the pond. All have a great time, and I love watching my own “theatre” of the different characters. However, unknown to me last summer when Stinker Belle, a total of 12 pounds with fur, was not coming in at night, she was hunting the 10 muskrats which were eventually rounded up for $50 a head by the exterminators in the Fall. She twice cornered one…and do they have nasty fangs! My giving advice to her to “pick on someone her own size” fell on deaf ears. In her spare time, she eliminated all of the moles on the property with my neighbors asking to borrow her. She too has a sweet face with beautiful brown eyes which she blinks when flirting with you. You would never guess her malicious bones in her body when she lies on the driveway in submission when the kids come home from school and she is hoping for a tummy rub. Or when she plays “soccer” with them…she gets a piece of the rubber and runs like “h…” with it. And no one can catch a JRT if healthy and running. I know that all too well.
Anyway, I am so glad to hear that Patti is back to taking care of her real life-time vocation: Clearing the HER property from beastly critters!
Thanks for the story on Patti, I’ve heard so many negatives on blasto outcomes. My Jack Russell Annie is really sick and tests don’t show why. She has several blasto symptoms, chronic fever, limp, goupy eyes, skin lesions and one eye has a mass behind it the other is shrinking in. They don’t think it’s a fungus because I live in Idaho, but since they can’t find a tumor and it doesn’t respond to antibiotics, they are finally going to treat it with a fungal medication. She is hospitalized today. Do you have any pointers for me?
Annie — Have they taken x-rays? The telltale for blastomycosis is what some veterinarians call a “snow storm” — all-white or nearly white on the film around lungs and heart. If your vet has NOT taken an x-ray, you need a new vet. If Annie has blasto, antibiotics could make it worse. I’m glad they’re trying an anti-fungal medication, but hope they are doing it because they saw that snow storm on the photo. The fact that you live in Idaho is not a good reason for ruling out blasto. I sure hope the antifungal works, and that they figure out what is wrong. I sure know how you’re feeling. — Joel
I just wanted to comment on your post. My puggle Max started having symptoms, bank in April. Max was just neutered the last week of March. I initially thought it was some type of infection from the surgery. Then, I thought it was an allergic reaction to an insect bite but it turned into something much worse…. blasto.
He initially had hives on his body and his right eye was very red & irritated. I took him to the vet who came to the same conclusion…. an allergic reaction. They put him on Benadryl and gave me drops for his eye. His symptoms began to compound in the next 2 weeks: fatigue, loss of appetite, fever. I began to get very worried, so I pressed the vet to do more research and tests. I am very glad that I did.
The vet finally completed a culture from one of the hives that had ruptured & from a biopsy of another, to make the blasto diagnosis. The vet suggested that some people just euthanize their dogs rather than deal with the disease, due to the costs. My response to that… “Would you shoot your child if he had cancer?” I think he saw my resolve about the situation.
Max has been up and down since then. Some days he is very alert and somewhat back to the dog I remember. Some days he just lays around, and will not even eat. He is currently on prednisone, fluconazole, steroid eye drops & multiple supplements to boost his immune system.
It has been 6 weeks since the onset and he has gotten better, but I am still very concerned. The vet has been so vague with information & it has been very frustrating. This is the first information I have found documenting any type of timeline around the disease.
Max is now exhibiting some of the vision issues you documented with Patti. I have been so worried that he will go blind, I hope he has the same results your Patti did. I would be interested to know what eye drops/medication the vets gave you for your dog.
Once again, thank you for sharing your story. -Brian
I have a 3 yr old pit bull his name is Patch, he has totally lost all sight.
Patch was very energetic loved to play ball with the kids, chase the laser we called the kitty….he just loved to play! He needs to have one of his eyes removed, my poor buddy!!!! My husband and I are trying to decide if it is fair to Patch to have to live blind? He lay’s around a lot because the eye is very painful, we are trying to control the pain as best we can with the pain meds and eye drops. I think once he has the eye removed and has been on treatment for a couple more months he will start to feel better and want to play again. If there is anyone that has a totally blind blasto dog I would love to have some feedback on how your dog is doing.