So Gaia has been here for a week now or so...
omfg does this dog smell BAD.
She had a bath before coming to me, I have given her a bath... no luck. This dog just smells awful, and it is nauseating. My Father in Law is complaining, and that is the person I DO NOT WANT to complain about the animals, because I don't want him to give her the boot over this. HELP!!???! What can I do, I've considered just going to the groomer, but if she smells this bad after two baths, and one of them I did my self, I am pretty thorough.... I don't think it will make much of a difference.
Now, I understand when people say their dog has stink fur.....

What kind of stink is it? For sure the fur or could it be a digestive stink that just clings to her? When Kenzi had stress colitus she didn't smell the prettiest but once I got her digestion back to normal it cleared up. If it smells like she has rolled in something dead or been sprayed by a skunk, what have you bathed her with? When Kenzi got sprayed by a skunk we used a mix of dish soap, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda on her and it did surprisingly well on the smell.

I don't really know how to describe it, it just smells like dirty dog; mixture of wet dog and or dirty socks or something idk...... Not anything like skunk or rolling in dead stuff or what have you.

I bathed her with groomer quality stuff, "Maximum Strength Deep action formula, by One Shot"

Archer stinks, to. We don't know why, he gets bathed often. I dust him with cornstarch baby powder... helps some.

Have you checked her skin to make sure she doesn't have any type of infection?

Check her ears for infection. Ear infections can stink something terrible.

I second baby powder they have a lavender scent. Put that in her fur after a bath and blow it out seems to work for my extreemly stinky gsd and I mean STINK its just that super dog smell I feel for you lol you could also do the baking soda supossed to help with smell. But it is odd I think for a husky to smell that bad

Huskies, by design, aren't supposed to have much of a smell, if any. She may have underlying issues...how does her skin look? Could it be something she is eating? Another possibility is the *meds* given for flea prevention, could it be any of these things? I know when I give my dogs (past and present) topicals for flea prevention, there is one (I don't remember which one though) that makes them smell like the meds, and it is an off putting kind of smell, not super strong but definitely there.

This thread keeps popping in my head ever since we found out what happened to Gaia. Personally, I wish when someone posts a question, they would follow it up with any answers to people's questions and a post to how it was finally resolved. I realize this is an innocent enough question in a grooming thread but we all also know huskies don't smell to the degree that was described in this thread. I also realize that Gaia's starving herself thread was innocent enough, with plenty of us trying to help and , like this thread, getting little to no feedback from the OP. With more feedback from OP's, we can all help more, and if we can't, it usually means we stress early on to get vet/medical advice. My heart is broken at what happened to Gaia, and I have to wonder if this odor was actually a early sign of what was going on with her because a mere 3 weeks later, this young, beautiful little girl is dead.

Please...we all are here to help when we can, to learn something new when we can't help, so can we all, if we post a thread about something asking for advice/opinions, follow up until the issue gets resolved?

Jimmy, first excuse me because we all know that I'm not the most tactful person in the world.

I cannot help but feel that Gaia was let down from the time she was a puppy.  If memory serves,Lucy was her fourth home in roughly a year?  Of course that should beg the question of "Why was she rehomed so much, so often?"  I don't have an answer to that - maybe if we had known more, earlier her death could have been prevented.

One of the symptoms of CRF / ARF is an unpleasant odor.  Simply the body trying to remove toxins which the kidneys are unable to remove.  Both Christine and Lucy have mentioned this ... in retrospect (and much searching with Google) I think we might have considered renal failure as a possibility.

When Gaia finally stopped eating, we all assumed the normal "I'm taking a break from food." with which we're all so familiar. When she couldn't be enticed to eat anything, I think we all assumed there was something seriously wrong but the vet(s?) found nothing.

If I had to place a blaming finger on anyone, it would have to point squarely at the vets involved with Gaia's care.  Many of the tests in normal blood work would have indicated that something was wrong - even in the early stages when it was, imo, chronic but not necessarily fatal.  Why they didn't see the signs in her bloodwork - which must have been performed before she was spayed - is completely beyond me.

With the exception of the vets, I don't think anyone failed Gaia, we know that in her too short life she had caretakers who loved and cared for her.  She had companions with whom she had a playful loving relationship. Everyone involved did the best they could for this little girl and to have her life end so tragically can only serve, I hope, as a wake up to all of us that when something is outside the norm - don't give up and don't put off that visit to the vet.  Above all, learning as much as I have in retrospect, it's important that we become more aware of what can happen and what the symptoms are.

In summation, I think it's important to add that the cause of renal failure in a young dog is still very contentious. Of course poisoning is a very direct cause of acute renal failure but the causes of chronic renal failure, as noted in this exceptional article, are uncertain. "Many causes have been discussed that seem logical – but few of them have been proven to be true."

Okay, I am sorry, but I really did everything I could.
I am sorry I didn't follow up here. You saying that I didn't follow up here, makes it feel like you are pointing a finger at me.

I took her to the vet. They said nothing was wrong.... I scrub the living hell out of her when they said nothing was wrong, and she didn't stink anymore. So I personally felt the issue was solved. Just because I didn't say it here, doesn't mean that in my personal opinion that the issue wasn't solved.
I am sorry I didn't say anything, but I am not obligated to check in.

I asked for help, I got suggestions, I acted. There really wasn't really a whole lot more that I could have done.

I took care of Gaia the best I could. I played with her, I biked with her, I made sure I was giving her enough water, I made sure to try my damnedest to get her to eat. She had fun with Okami, they loved their hikes in the yard.... I asked for help when I felt there was something going on, and the ultimate conclusion was that there wasn't really anything that I could have done.

I already feel like a failure, so please, rubbing it in that I should have posted here isn't really doing me or anyone any good.

I understand that your heart is in the right place, but maybe you could have waited a few days before suggesting? The loss of this beautiful dog is still really affecting my family, and I can't deal with this right now.

Lucy, I think you did your best. Everyone would have done the same. When the vet says they're healthy, you trust the vet. It's what they went to school for, after all. Some dogs are just smelly, how could you have known it was a symptom of another issue if even the vet did not know? It's nothing to beat yourself up over. You did what you could for her.

I think what Jimmy is saying is that we all need to work together to examine things and consider ideas that the vets might be missing. I think we're all scared knowing that some day we will go through what you are going through: the loss of a pet, and we're grasping at straws to try to escape that. Everyone is so shocked by what happened and are wondering what we could have done differently, what went wrong, etc. That said, even if we all did that would we have figured out what the real cause was? Probably not.

You gave Gaia the best life you could. I bet she's really happy to know that she spent her last days being loved and cared for. That's more than many could ask for.

Since Lucy said the smell was gone after scrubbing her, I am guessing the odor was not a symptom of the kidney failure.  I still strongly believe that, with the high fever, she had an infection with a resulting acute kidney failure.  Either the infection was too new for the vet to catch it and progressed rapidly or the vet just plain missed it, in my opinion - which is total conjecture.

Were any blood tests done, Lucy?  

BTW - kidney failure has sooooo many antecedents, it will probably never be known what happened.

EDIT: Also note, malodor from kidney disease is from bad breath due to the build up of urea and would not be removed by bathing.

There are no fingers to be pointed Lucy, I'm not quite sure why you took it *that* way. What happened is a tragedy, the members of this forum are somewhat like a family, when something happens to one of our dogs, we all feel the frustration and anxiety in wanting to get that dog better and if something tragic happens, we all feel that heartache and pain. I'm simply asking that if we do come and post a question here, we follow up. No, you are correct, you were not "obligated" to do so, but at the same time, you are asking for help and advice ( again, not pointing fingers, *you* means everyone of us in general) why not return the favor by following up with how it was remedied to help others if and when they may have the same issue? Not everyone will post a question, many use the search function. We are here to help each other.

You had Gaia a short month, so when you posted that she was starving herself, that she was crying out all night, this thread did pop into my mind because in that short time you had her, these things were just too close together..I was the only one that asked you in that thread if the crying out she was doing could possibly be because she was in pain...I was still connecting all of these symptoms that she had in the short time period, so maybe you can see why posting that the odor issue was resolved can help people help you better?

I am truly sorry your family has to go through this, no one could have been happier for you when Gaia came to live with you than me, I will apologize that maybe my post wasn't worded well enough and that it somehow led you to believe I was pointing fingers at you, but I won't apologize for the post itself, I think it's important when asking for help, to follow it through to the end.

amymeme wrote:

Since Lucy said the smell was gone after scrubbing her, I am guessing the odor was not a symptom of the kidney failure.  I still strongly believe that, with the high fever, she had an infection with a resulting acute kidney failure.  Either the infection was too new for the vet to catch it and progressed rapidly or the vet just plain missed it, in my opinion - which is total conjecture.

Were any blood tests done, Lucy?  

BTW - kidney failure has sooooo many antecedents, it will probably never be known what happened.

EDIT:  Also note, malodor from kidney disease is from bad breath due to the build up of urea and would not be removed by bathing.

I hope blood tests were done Amy, knowing it could have been an infection has me very concerned for Okami.

Does anyone know the protocol for something like this? are blood tests routinely done whether or not a client asks for them when a otherwise healthy dog passes away under such circumstances? I'm thinking there must be? How would they document a strain/or new strain of a virus otherwise? Would Lucy still be able to ask for them? Or atleast find out if it's something Okami can get?

I doubt any kind of post mortem was done unless Lucy specifically asked - I was just wondering if they did a white count when she went in and found out about the kidney disease. Otherwise, as I said previously, it is very unlikely it will ever be known what caused the kidney failure - it is all conjecture on our part.

The only way the proverbial "they" would document a new strain or virus etc is if there were a cluster of similar cases with enough victims to catch the attention of public health or a suspicious vet.

My husband said that there were tests done, but they didn't say anything was contagious. They just said it was hard to tell if it was something that she was born with or if it was a disease. "Without knowing her history, we can't determine what the underlying cause of her kidney failure is. We would like to get and ultrasound....." <---- many other tests that I don't remember....."so that we can figure out what is going on with her." Then they go on to tell me that the condition that she was in, lame in her back legs, lethargic, labored breathing, etcetera, that she was probably not going to make it even if they did everything they could. So I made the decision to euthanize her. The second that that word left my lips to them, I was in mega tears. I haven't cried that hard in I don't know how long. My heart broke. I really don't know what else I can say. They probably would have called to tell me if they found out anything contagious, but there was never any mention of such.

I don't know if this is really an appropriate time to be playing the "what if" game. I'm sure Lucy is going through hell beating herself up and asking herself what else could be done, and even though I know you guys have your hearts in the right place I think maybe we should let up on it. Yes, it's important to make sure it's not something communicable, but had this kind of discussion happened in the wake of Shadow's passing I'd have been more than a bit upset and that's putting it mildly.

Lucy, I'm so sorry that this is how things went, and I completely understand how you feel right now. I felt like I was gutting myself as those same words came out of my mouth almost a year ago. You did a wonderful thing taking in Gaia, and you did the best you could for her. I wish I could give you a hug, but all I can do is tell you that it wasn't your fault even though I know you feel like it was. I'm here if you need anything.

blueeyedghost wrote:

I don't know if this is really an appropriate time to be playing the "what if" game. I'm sure Lucy is going through hell beating herself up and asking herself what else could be done, and even though I know you guys have your hearts in the right place I think maybe we should let up on it. Yes, it's important to make sure it's not something communicable, but had this kind of discussion happened in the wake of Shadow's passing I'd have been more than a bit upset and that's putting it mildly.

Lucy, I'm so sorry that this is how things went, and I completely understand how you feel right now. I felt like I was gutting myself as those same words came out of my mouth almost a year ago. You did a wonderful thing taking in Gaia, and you did the best you could for her. I wish I could give you a hug, but all I can do is tell you that it wasn't your fault even though I know you feel like it was. I'm here if you need anything.

Well said, Meredith.

amymeme wrote:

blueeyedghost wrote:

I don't know if this is really an appropriate time to be playing the "what if" game. I'm sure Lucy is going through hell beating herself up and asking herself what else could be done, and even though I know you guys have your hearts in the right place I think maybe we should let up on it. Yes, it's important to make sure it's not something communicable, but had this kind of discussion happened in the wake of Shadow's passing I'd have been more than a bit upset and that's putting it mildly.

Lucy, I'm so sorry that this is how things went, and I completely understand how you feel right now. I felt like I was gutting myself as those same words came out of my mouth almost a year ago. You did a wonderful thing taking in Gaia, and you did the best you could for her. I wish I could give you a hug, but all I can do is tell you that it wasn't your fault even though I know you feel like it was. I'm here if you need anything.

Well said, Meredith.

Agreed. Lucy, I'm so sorry for you loss. I've been absent from the forum for a few weeks so I don't know the full situation, but how heartbreaking.

All I can say is that it's easy for well meaning people to google, copy and paste on forums, but the truth is, we don't have any expertise or knowledge unless we've gone through this with our own dogs.

Personally, I know you did all you could for her. It's obvious to me from how you love and care for Okami that you give your pets excellent care that fulfills all their needs and go above and beyond for them. I know you did nothing less for Gaia.

I'm sorry to see others joining in the 'what if' game, as if you haven't been through enough. The tone of the forum lately has really turned me off, and coming back to see this just made me sad for you.

Diz and I send our love and hugs, and you can always send me a pm if you want to talk.

~Jen