We just had such a "gross" experience with our Rat Terrier Holly, and wanted to post it here for anyone else that has never heard of cuterebra.:yikes:
Almost two weeks ago Holly was acting strange one night. She wouldn't eat her dinner (1st time in 2 1/2 years) but I couldn't tell for sure what was bothering her. I was guessing that one of her legs hurt, just because she would jump up on the couch, but when she went to jump down she would hesitate for quite a while before jumping, but couldn't see anything wrong, and she wasn't limping. I decided to see how she was by the next morning and call the vet if she wasn't feeling better. She got up acting like her "normal self" eating, playing etc. In the evening we were sitting down on the couch watching TV, and Holly was laying next to me and rolled over for me to rub her tummy. I noticed she had what looked like a "puncture wound" on one side of her chest, and it had a small amount of swelling under the puncture. I had some antibiotic cream, so put that on for several days, but on third day it was starting to look infected, so I took her to the vet. The vet also thought it looked like a pucture wound, and gave her a shot, and an oral antibiotic to take, plus an antibacterial wash to do warm compresses. She was suppose to go back in one week to have it looked at again, but after 4 days though the infection seemed to be gone, I just didn't like the way it looked at all, so I made an appt. to take Holly back in the next day. On one side around the "puncture" the swelling had gone down flat, but the other side was huge and stuck out like a huge ugly boil/pimple or something. It wasn't really red or anything, but it just wasn't going down at all. So we get to the vet and the vet tech looked at her "hole" (she wasn't the one that was there last Sunday) and picked Holly up and said she was taking her to the back (which I thought was strange) but I just waited in the exam room. A few minutes later Dr. Nelson (who Holly had seen last Sunday) comes into the exam room with this "thing" on a paper towel, and said "Look what I just got out of Holly!" I looked at this wiggling UGLY 1 inch grub looking thing.. and said "OMG!!! what in the *ELL is that??" She said It's called a cuterebra, and they are the larva stage of the bot fly!! Dr. Nelson, when she saw Holly last Sunday thought (like it did) that it was a puncture wound, (hard to tell it was so infected) but it did look different this time, and as it turned out they'd had another caterebra in another dog earlier in the day! The vet tech was from Colorado, where I guess they have this happen all the time.. but is not very common with dogs/cats in Oregon. The caterebra is normally found in rodents - squirrels, rabbits, for the most part,
but can be found in cats/dogs. I'm sending a couple of links if you want to read about it. The second link has pictures of a squirrel with the caterebra, but this is NOT what Holly's looked like, since her "bug baby" was born prematurely!
http://pets.coloradosprings.com/vet_fullstory.jsp?id=4946
http://botfly.ifas.ufl.edu/wrbpex/wrbpex.htm
In the article at the first link it mentions that "normally" the caterebra are pretty harmless, but can migrate to other areas of the body like the brain, causing seizures and damage to the central nervous system. This article talked about a Rat Terrier that had this happen: http://www.vetcontact.com/en/art.php?a=1138&t=
So... I just have to feel grateful that Holly only gave birth to her "bug" with no other damage. We have her "baby" in a jar of formaldehyde to show and tell, LOL! :lol-sign:
I took a picture of Holly's chest:
(this was taken the day after "birth") and the picture is pretty blurred, but you can see the hole that is still there.
I hope this info might be helpful to someone else!
Almost two weeks ago Holly was acting strange one night. She wouldn't eat her dinner (1st time in 2 1/2 years) but I couldn't tell for sure what was bothering her. I was guessing that one of her legs hurt, just because she would jump up on the couch, but when she went to jump down she would hesitate for quite a while before jumping, but couldn't see anything wrong, and she wasn't limping. I decided to see how she was by the next morning and call the vet if she wasn't feeling better. She got up acting like her "normal self" eating, playing etc. In the evening we were sitting down on the couch watching TV, and Holly was laying next to me and rolled over for me to rub her tummy. I noticed she had what looked like a "puncture wound" on one side of her chest, and it had a small amount of swelling under the puncture. I had some antibiotic cream, so put that on for several days, but on third day it was starting to look infected, so I took her to the vet. The vet also thought it looked like a pucture wound, and gave her a shot, and an oral antibiotic to take, plus an antibacterial wash to do warm compresses. She was suppose to go back in one week to have it looked at again, but after 4 days though the infection seemed to be gone, I just didn't like the way it looked at all, so I made an appt. to take Holly back in the next day. On one side around the "puncture" the swelling had gone down flat, but the other side was huge and stuck out like a huge ugly boil/pimple or something. It wasn't really red or anything, but it just wasn't going down at all. So we get to the vet and the vet tech looked at her "hole" (she wasn't the one that was there last Sunday) and picked Holly up and said she was taking her to the back (which I thought was strange) but I just waited in the exam room. A few minutes later Dr. Nelson (who Holly had seen last Sunday) comes into the exam room with this "thing" on a paper towel, and said "Look what I just got out of Holly!" I looked at this wiggling UGLY 1 inch grub looking thing.. and said "OMG!!! what in the *ELL is that??" She said It's called a cuterebra, and they are the larva stage of the bot fly!! Dr. Nelson, when she saw Holly last Sunday thought (like it did) that it was a puncture wound, (hard to tell it was so infected) but it did look different this time, and as it turned out they'd had another caterebra in another dog earlier in the day! The vet tech was from Colorado, where I guess they have this happen all the time.. but is not very common with dogs/cats in Oregon. The caterebra is normally found in rodents - squirrels, rabbits, for the most part,
but can be found in cats/dogs. I'm sending a couple of links if you want to read about it. The second link has pictures of a squirrel with the caterebra, but this is NOT what Holly's looked like, since her "bug baby" was born prematurely!
http://pets.coloradosprings.com/vet_fullstory.jsp?id=4946
http://botfly.ifas.ufl.edu/wrbpex/wrbpex.htm
In the article at the first link it mentions that "normally" the caterebra are pretty harmless, but can migrate to other areas of the body like the brain, causing seizures and damage to the central nervous system. This article talked about a Rat Terrier that had this happen: http://www.vetcontact.com/en/art.php?a=1138&t=
So... I just have to feel grateful that Holly only gave birth to her "bug" with no other damage. We have her "baby" in a jar of formaldehyde to show and tell, LOL! :lol-sign:
I took a picture of Holly's chest:
(this was taken the day after "birth") and the picture is pretty blurred, but you can see the hole that is still there.
I hope this info might be helpful to someone else!