So, you're probably wondering about the title. Well, I'll trace you guys back to Friday.
When I brought Sam in from being outside playing with his best friend, Max, and I was feeling his ears, and I feel that his left ear was swelled up like a balloon.
My initial thought was, "Does Sam have cancer?" since German Shepherds are more likely to get certain cancers once they reach middle age, and Sam's going to turn 5 in a few weeks, so I did research on cancers.
When I was done feeding Sam, I told my dad about Sam's ear, and he thought it could possibly be a bee sting since it's swollen. And once I finished getting ready to go to my classes, I tried to treat his ear like a bee sting.
The next day, my dad came down after I fed Sam, and he said it could possibly be a aural hematoma, which is when a blood vessel breaks by either a dog hitting their heads on something, or they shook their heads so hard, a blood vessel broke, and blood pooled between the skin and the cartilage of their ears. That was most likely what it was since bees aren't flying around in early March.
So Monday rolls around, Sam's ear has gotten worse in the past few days, we take Sam to the animal hospital.
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Here's Sam waiting in the car to be fitted in a room.
You guys are probably wondering why Sam's wearing a muzzle. Well, it's because he's not friendly with other dogs except for his best friend. So we had to do it so he doesn't attack the other dogs, especially since there were a lot of small dogs there, the only big dog I saw was a Saint Bernard, and he was a cutie.
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We then got into a room and we waited for about 10 minutes before the vets came in to see what's wrong.
What they saw was that Sam does have a aural hematoma, and he also has a yeast infection in both of his ear, which was possibly caused by him rolling around in snow, since he loves snow.
He now has to take anti inflammatory steroid pills to help lower down his hematoma over time, since the vet said that's the best treatment that's not surgery, since surgery can possibly make it come back, and it will be a long recovery, and he has ear drops to take for his yeast infection.
We have to take Sam back on the 25th to check how his ears are, and to schedule to have him neutered, so he doesn't get testicular cancer, and he's not so aggressive towards other dogs.
Right now, Sam's doing much better with his yeast infection, and the hematoma is slowly getting smaller.
