Dog Resistant Staph Infection

Recently, I have been treating a unique skin infection in a Lab used for duck hunting- a case of dog resistant Staph infection. I have seen a few cases of resistant Staph in my fifteen years but none of which presented like this one. Usually, these infections show up after prolonged antibiotic therapy for some sort of other infection. Sometimes, they will also show up when treating a fungal infection. However, this case is unique because this infection appeared for no apparent reason.

Acquiring Dog Resistant Staph Infection?

I can only surmise! Some of the reasons include the following: prolonged antibiotic treatment, other immuno-compromising diseases,  mixed bacterial and fungal infections and, sometimes, dogs just get it. We don’t know why!

Diagnosis

Generally speaking, resistant Staph is not the first thing I think of when I see a dog with a skin infection. Usually, unless the area is really nasty, I think of general pyoderma which responds quickly to antibiotics like Cephalexin. I see pyoderma all the time! However, when  a lesion doesn’t respond as expected, other diagnostic tests should be performed such as culture and sensitivity. In this case, culture and sensitivity verified a dog resistant Staph infection.

Treatment

We choose the antibiotic based on the results of the culture and sensitivity. In this case, the antibiotic of choice was Clindamycin. Clindamycin is an antibiotic commonly used to treat dental infections. We also treated the infection topically with Amikacin dressings. Even though Amikacin is expensive, aggressive treatment is mandatory in order to control the infection. I also used Vitamin B3 in the treatment.

New Treatments

A treatment that is gaining a lot of attention lately is the use of honey products in wound treatments. To learn more about the use of honey in wound therapy, visit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090908-mrsa-staph-manuka-honey.html