WARNING – this article contains an image that may disturb some viewers

Peaches Is Not Feeling So Peachy.

Peaches is a 2 year desexed female Standard Poodle. Her owner Cathy noticed a large amount of yellow discharge coming from Peaches’ vagina.  Not surprisingly this was quite upsetting and embarrassing for her owner.

Peaches was desexed at her breeder’s vet when she was only 12 weeks of age.
Undesexed dogs have their ovaries and  uterus in tact. A bloody discharge is normal in these dogs as part of their hormonal cycle. However a yellow, mucous discharge is never normal in a desexed or undesexed dog.

As a desexed dog, we would not expect to see any discharge from the vagina of Peaches. There are many causes of this discharge, ranging from an infection in the remaining parts of the genital tract, a foreign body – such as a grass seed slipping up inside, an abnormal pathway of the tubes leaving the bladder and going to the outside,
congenital problems with the structure of the vagina, hormonal imbalances or inflammation.

After a big discussion with Cathy, we decided on a plan of action that included  looking inside the vulva and vagina with an endoscope and performing a special dye test that enabled visualization of the kidneys, bladder and all the outlet tubes that take urine to the outside of the body.

An endoscope is a long flexible camera that allows us to look into small places. We were able to see that her vagina was covered in small blisters. Were these caused by inflammation, irritation from abnormal urine flow or a hormonal inbalance?

Further tests  show an image of the dye being filtered through the kidneys and filling the bladder. It shows that the path way from the bladder to the outside is normal. A further dye study examined the structure of the vagina and it too was normal.

Through these tests we were able to confirm that Peaches urinary tract was normal and she is now being treated with  anti inflammatory tablets and doing well.