Dog Health Problems - Symptoms of 4 Common Dog Ailments

It's important for every dog owner to recognize dog health problems and symptoms as your furry pal relies on you to be his or her "first responder" when they have a problem. You can tell when they aren't feeling all that well but do you really know what to do? Listed below are the symptoms for some common dog health problems ranging from the everyday to the very serious.

Dog Diarrhea

The symptoms of this condition are pretty obvious. Your canine buddy is probably going to express some pain when defecating because that strain is just magnifying the pain in his stomach. The stool will be runny and may be an abnormal color. The odor will be more intense.

Diarrhea in dogs is quite common thanks to a dog's complete lack of discrimination in what he eats. If it smells okay and doesn't hurt his mouth then it is potential food. As a result they eat stuff that makes them sick.

Symptoms Of Lyme Disease In Dogs

Lyme disease is a bacterium known as Borrelia which is transmitted to your dog through a tick bite. Unfortunately, there are no symptoms until weeks after the infection and when they do show they are often mistaken for other ailments.

The most common symptom is one that appears to be arthritis. Joints and lymph glands can become swollen making it very painful for the dog to walk or even get comfortable laying down. Your pal will become listless, may refuse to eat because the effort hurts too much, and may revert to using the inside of the house as his bathroom rather than going outside.

The giveaway that this is Lyme's and not arthritis is that the affected limbs will change. When arthritis develops it doesn't move around. With Lyme's disease one side of your dog can be affected one week and then suddenly it heals and the other side is affected.

Symptoms of Distemper

Distemper is an airborne virus that is highly contagious and affects the dog's respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems. Distemper will first show itself with cold like symptoms with watery eyes, runny nose, a cough and sometimes diarrhea. Later in the development of the disease the dog will suffer from disorientation, twitching and even convulsions. Unfortunately there is no effective treatment for this disease.

Symptoms of Ear Infections

These infections are fairly common particularly with dogs that have heavy earflap like Bassets and Dachshunds. The infection is caused by bacteria or yeast that appear when there is a change in the dog's ear like an infestation of ticks or mites. Symptoms of an ear infection include the shaking of the head, a pawing of the ears, pain and a foul odor coming from the ears.

Of course there are many more ailments that can affect your canine friend but the thing to remember is prevention. It's really not so different from taking care of a kid. Keep their shots up to date, keep them well fed and clean and provide clean bedding. Parasites cause most of the problems and if you can limit your dog's exposure to strange dogs you are limiting the possibility of exposure to disease. If you notice dog health problems that do not go away after a few days, take your pal to the vet.