davet......question on traces of blood in saliva of Pom....

[Vicki]

davet (or anyone that has some thoughts on this)....my 6 year old Pom just recently started this. Every once in a while he'll either be sleeping or sitting - just normal activity....and he'll start licking his mouth like dogs do when they're eating. He'll do it for about a minute and then stop....no other abnormal behavior. I didn't think anything of it at first....then one time he did it and I picked him up and looked in his mouth to see if a hair or something was caught or stuck in his teeth....didn't see anything....but I did smell a faint metallic smell - kinda like blood. Didn't see any blood at all. A week or two later he did it again and this time I picked him up, got the flashlight and looked real careful into his mouth - didn't see anything unusual. Then, at the very back of his mouth, mixed with a little bit of saliva I could see an ever so small reddish color....like blood. I pushed his tongue down to see if I could see any wounds of any kind back there - and didn't see anythign unusual. No loose teeth - or recently fallen out teeth. He's eating and drinking as usual....eliminating as usual.....playful as usual....gum color is normal....everything is normal. What might cause something like this? I had a thought about the dryness in our house and wondered if maybe the membranes of his nose or sinuses had gotten to dry and maybe a small vessel was bleeding or something. My other thought was that there could be some cancer down there causing this minute bleeding. Haven't gone to the vet yet - he's due next week for his annual exam and I'll talk to the vet then about it but wanted to know if you had any thoughts. Thanks much.....Vicki

[davet]

any thing would be a guess...but the first thing i would think of would be a foreign body imbedded in the throat area...have seen things like tacks, window wedges, needles etc...secondly would thin of a lesion from cause unknown andthirdly woyuld be a malignant bit of tissue...i think the first thing would be to get an x-ray and see if anything shows up...=shards of glass will not show but metallic items would.....needles and bits of tacks etc are not unusual....ag\ guesss wouled be a foreign object but to ungess would require an x-ray

[k9Karen]

davet - you outdid yourself - what the heck is "to ungess"?

To Vicki -I'm not sure, could certainly be any of the things you or davet mentioned. Hope you find out when you go to the vet and all is OK. Good luck.

[davet]

i'murprised Karen..especiall with this sstatement::

....ag\ guesss wouled be a foreign object but to ungess would require an x-ray

Ag\guess wouled be the counter active part of unguess...with all your education and teaching and analytical ability you, of all pip;leshould know that-----when you figure it out though, will you let me know cause i am still thinking...

[davet]

Vickie, when you find out, would you please post it.....???

[Vicki]

Thanks davet....and everyone else. davet.....would he be coughing if something were actually stuck in his throat? He hardly ever coughs and I would think if a pine needle or something was stuck down there he'd be coughing an awful lot.

[davet]

whemn it is a large object they will caough, gag, paw at their throat, when it is a small object they may do nothing...and again this is all guess work but have it checked....