I’d never heard of it. Although not limited to any specific breed, anybody (particularly those that actually hunt coons with dogs) have any experience with this in their dogs?
Unfortunately, we are currently dealing with our near 5 year old yellow lab Bailey for what the Vet suspects is Idiopathic Polyradiculoneuritis, colloquially called Coon Hound Paralysis. Bailey always did sit a bit side-saddle and I did suspect we would be dealing with potential hip dysplasia in later years, but this is different. It is described as a sudden inflammation of nerve roots and peripheral nerves. It can be attributed to contact with raccoon saliva (hence the colloquial name) but there are other suspected causes.
Last Friday he started the day seemingly normal, even on our morning walk. However as the day progressed, his side-saddle sit became more pronounced and I noticed him laying down often. Later that evening, his hind end became weak which is the typical starting point of this affliction and it can eventually include all limbs and neck. He’s on meds since Saturday so I hope we got a quick start. From what I’ve read, there isn’t really any continuous med regimen for this. His front legs and neck seem not too bad. Recovery can be measured in months but we hope we got started before it got too advanced.
At this point, the “diagnosis” of Coon Hound Paralysis is the Vets best guess based largely on there not really being much pain as there might be if it were a herniated disc / nerve pinch or other spinal injury. I keep massaging the legs and “tickling” the paws to see if he jerks them in response. The right-rear leg is the worst with the left-rear leg more responsive but still deficient. Such is the downside of pet ownership that we have all had to experience one way or another. We’ll just have to ride this out and see where we end up. It does not appear to be life-threatening in Baileys case as it hasn’t progressed much and there are subtle hopeful (wishful?) signs of improvement so that’s good and most (not all) info on-line suggest recovery from Coon Hound Paralysis is a high probability. We hope so. This affliction was cited on-line to be fairly “rare” but once you start researching it on-line and find so many discussions/reports of it, one has to wonder.
I’ve read that one of the other suspected causes has been reported as reaction to recent vaccination. Although the Vet doesn’t seem to think so, it still makes me wonder. Bailey got his “usual” updates for Lepto and rabies in early June, but he has had these exact same shots before I believe, but I changed his worm & flea/tick meds to new ones this year that also started in early June, separated by a couple of days each (BAYER Advantage Multi & K9 advantix II, both topical applications). I haven’t found anything on-line indicating any such connection but I used to use chewable worm meds and Bravecto (topical I think) for flea/tick.
Anyway, it is a wait and see situation for now so that is what we will do.https://www.oodmag.com/community/ima...2102_grief.gif
