At Davis Drive Animal Clinic we diagnose and manage some very challenging cases. Recently, we had a dog with some very strange blood test results that required us to hit the books in order to come up with a diagnosis.
Chica is a female 6 year old Terrier Cross adopted from the SPCA in Mexico 3 years ago. She did have intestinal worms that we successfully treated but was otherwise healthy upon her arrival to Canada.
Last month, Chica came in for her annual examination and routine Lifestage Blood Tests. She was in great health physically but her labwork showed a peculiar elevation to her globulin proteins and a concerning reduction to her platelets. Platelets are involved with clotting and if a platelet count drops too far, spontaneous bleeding will occur. We elected to recheck her blood again 2 weeks later to trend these findings and found that these abnormalities were repeatable. There are several possible diseases that can cause a low platelet count. However, since she came from Mexico originally, I decided to test her for the various bacteria that can be transmitted by ticks. Chica tested positive for one called Ehrlichia canis which invades the white blood cell and she is currently on 6 weeks of antibiotics. We expect her platelet count to return to normal and plan on retesting her blood counts again in 1 week.
Dr Fussell
