Ugh! Doc, he has maggots!
The picture is familiar and happens every summer when flies start to hatch. The pet is usually debilitated or poorly groomed, often with feces or urine caked on his fur. We see more problems with long and thick coated breeds, such as Samoyeds and Collies. The flies are attracted to the foul smelling coat and lay their eggs in the soiled hair. When the eggs hatch, fly larvae emerge and are hungry scavengers which produce toxins that break down surrounding matter, including the skin, and allow them to digest it. That is why animals with maggots smell so bad. Their tissues are actually dying under the fur.
Treatment is straight forward. We clean up the animal, remove the maggots and treat the infected, painful skin. If the pet does not receive treatment in time, maggots will devour large amounts of tissue, usually entering the rectum and vagina and sometimes eating right through the walls of these organs.
The resulting toxemia and infection may result in death. Many of these animals are silently suffering from some other illness and need to be treated for that as well.
The antibiotic will help the bacterial skin infection that is probably present, but it won't kill the maggots. You need to remove them by hand. Shaving the hair from the affected area is the first step. After hair removal, the extent of the maggot infestation can now be seen. Frequently, there are hundreds of tiny maggots that burrow under the skin, and removal of all maggots may take several hours. A mild insecticide can be applied briefly and then washed off to reduce potential harm to the pet.
Maggots in dogs food
Don't leave dog food down! It doesn't just encourage flies, it goes sour and can make the dog ill. Really and truly you should follow the same food hygiene rules with your pet's food as you do your own!!! Try feeding an all-in-one dry food accompanied by plenty of fresh water, when the dog has finished eating, remove the bowl straightaway. Never leave uneaten food (especially the wet canned variety) lying around on the assumption the dog will come back and finish it. The dog will find it as unpalatable as you would if you left a half-eaten midday meal out in the sun and had to eat it for tea. The water bowl should also be rinsed out and refilled several times a day too.
This might be a lot more than you're able to do, and you may want to consider having your veterinarian do this for you. You shouldn't wait in removing the maggots, or put off treating your dog.
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