France in Focus

This evening Fixit, Orel the doodle and I went to the village bar, on Wednesdays there is usually a goodly mix of folk to talk to.
On the terrace was a table of 4 furriners, Brits whom I didn't readily recognise but one of the ladies asked my name... oh she said, I must thank you, 4 years ago you saved the life of our dear old chocolate labrador and I must tell you he lived to be 15 years old, we lost him last winter.
Memory bells rang... I had turned up at the bar at 6.30ish with two labs, our old Bernie and young Maona and we got talking. The lady told me her lab was very ill, she thought with heatstroke but it wasn't hot and they were in a comfy house. I guessed tick fever and rang our vets to ask them to stay open until she got there and sent the lady back to her gite to collect the poor dog and get it to the vet asap.
I was right, the lab got treated and he pulled through.
Sometimes the gods shine on dogs.

Piroplasmose can be tricky in animals and the more quickly it's treated, the quicker the recovery. Ticks aren't always easy to find, particularly the tiny ones.
Well done Liz for thinking of piro, and saving the dog's life.

One of the horses had the equine version years ago. Our vet came out promptly, took bloods away to test for piro and returned soon after to inject the vital carbesia. It's a chemotherapeutic treatment which kills off the parasite. It also has nasty side effects which gave him acute diarrhoea after the first dose and acute colic after the second. But he lived to tell the tale and is now 33. Very scary couple of days but I was so grateful to our vet for the immediate diagnosis and treatment.