I'm Dr. Clayton Greenway with
healthcareforpets.com we're answering
questions this morning that came into
the website.
This one comes from Mary and she says I
have a five-year-old Shih Tzu Bishon
named Happy as its name suggests he's
been a happy energetic dog who loves to
play since day one. Less than two weeks
ago he had his rabies shot. Last week he
started becoming lethargic and can't
jump onto my couch or bed anymore. He's
eating and drinking, pooping and peeing seems
fine he's just not happy.
Is this something that will take care of
itself? This is a really interesting
question.
This is the first thing I think about
when I read this is, the point of me
answering questions is trying to help
you out but in this type of case, you
really should get a physical exam, do
some blood work, make sure there's no
problems going on and it's just a
reminder that these answers really are
in conjunction with a physical exam and
consultation with your veterinarian and
particularly in a case like this but
here's a couple things I can say. You
know it's interesting when Mary talks
about the rabies shot and there's a lot
of discussion, concerns, thoughts about
vaccination about the positives and
negatives and it's a very convoluted
deep discussion that I can't go into but
vaccines are often named as reasons for
problems happening. Certainly a vaccine
can cause an animal to be lethargic
just like when we get a vaccination
that's normal that's an expected course
of action it interacts with the immune
system and stimulates it and it's going
to tire them out a bit.
This is now going on about two weeks and
that's a little longer than I would like
there are reactions that can happen from
vaccines that interact with the immune
system that I think it's best to just
take a look at some blood work and
things like that.
The other thing is there might be
soreness at the injection site. These
vaccines are usually under the skin not,
in the muscle so it usually doesn't
cause that much soreness and I don't
hear that often but it's possible.
So you could alleviate some of that with
medication
or just let them take it easy.
This if it's from the vaccination, I'm
pretty positive about that because it
should just kind of deal with itself but
at the same time I would go and get a
couple things checked out.
I think there's a it's okay to wait a
little bit on this, monitor for another
week but if any other clinical symptoms
comes up, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea
anything like that I'd be going to the
clinic right away to get some
diagnostics done.
Aside from that, if this is just a matter
of something else happening maybe
somebody came or left the house maybe a
kid went off to college, maybe there's
something going on in the neighborhood
where the stimulus isn't the same
anymore,
that's another thing that can make us
think our pets are not happy when their
environment is not a stimulating for
them. So sometimes getting some new toys,
interacting with them more, picking up the
amount of walking going to new places,
things like that may engage them a
little more and bring back some of that
personality. It's very important that we
don't ascribe a human trait or emotion
to them like depression. I really think
this is a matter of stimulation from the
environment when that's the case. In this
case I'd want Mary to go see the vet,
make sure everything's okay, do some
blood work, do a physical exam and be
sure that there's nothing more serious
going on but aside from that usually
vaccine reactions resolve themselves
this was going on a little bit longer. So
hopefully this works out for you Mary
send in another question if you need to
and let us know how things are going
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