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Thought I would do a little update on Poppy. She recovered from her various procedures really well. She coughed a little bit for the first few days but we had been told that this was to be expected bearing in mind the operation and the many tubes that she'd had down her throat.

She had a good weekend away, staying with a lot of tri-shelties and Dennis and Bernadette whilst we were at Crufts. Poppy was the bright light amongst these little black things! She came back very bright and happy and Bernadette thought her coughing had lessened. I am pleased to report that all my girls behaved and apart from a couple of AZBO's handed out to Zeki all was fine! Thank you B&D for having them. Thank you also to D&M for looking after Burphy and NN!

However on Monday she started to cough a bit more and it has steadily got worse over the last couple of days.

The vet from NDSR called me yesterday as she had promised to do once the final blood results were back and the result of the histology from the piece removed from Poppy's tonsil. It turned out that it wasn't a laceration in her tonsil but a benign polyp so it's good that it's gone as it might have grown larger and irritated her even more. They are certain that there is nothing to be concerned about and that it will heal and be absolutely fine. Having read up a bit on this it seems these benign tumours of the tonsil are actually quite rare. I am so glad it is benign as I lost my first red and white border collie Bess to cancer of the tonsils aged only 7. Poppy is the spitting image of Bess and I couldn't bear to lose her to the same horrible disease.

The results from the lung wash indicate a mild increase in the eosinophils (a type of white blood cell from the immune system.) This increase could indicate the presence of something such as lung worm but through other tests this has been discounted and so it points more to some kind of allergic reaction. To what though we haven't any idea. As far as I'm aware nothing has changed in our household but it's very hard to cover every base. The vet is quite puzzled by the situation as all Poppy's airways and chest look crystal clear on the CT scans and yet the coughing has come back.

So, now I have to keep a diary of Poppy's coughing and then in two weeks' time call the vet to discuss possible treatment for her. The most likely is that we will have to use an inhaler on her. I'm not sure yet how this works so need to do some reading up on the subject.

Other than this Poppy is looking great and is fine within herself bless her little heart. She is such a sweet dog and I hate to see her going through these awful coughing spasms. It's very frustrating and I hope we can get to the bottom of it.