Hive Reaction – Pudding the Puppy
Pudding can’t seem to keep out of trouble. At 6 months old he has been found on the streets of the western suburb, raided the recycling bin numerous times, eaten all sorts of inappropriate things and generally won our hearts. This day he appeared with a very significant hive reaction.
Pudding’s eyes and mouth were swollen and his usually smooth coat had raised bumps which is a classic allergic reaction. You can see that the swelling is worse on his right side so we carefully started looking for a bee sting – the most common cause of a hive reaction. 
Instead of a single sting there were several black splinters inside his right upper lip. Under the microscope the splinters were pointy and hairy.
We suspected that Pudding had tried to eat a hairy caterpillar – not a wise thing to do.
All the black splinters we could find were plucked out (Pudding is a very patient fellow). He was given an antihistamine injection and a strong anti-inflammatory injection.
One hour later he was almost back to normal.
We wonder if he will avoid hairy caterpillars in the future – maybe not.
