One of my ferrets has a foul smell coming from his mouth.  Allergies distort
my sense of smell but my vet says it smells like "mouse poop" (well that's
the cleaned up version).
 
I once heard Alicia D.  refer to "liver breath" but am unfamiliar with the
odor.  Dancing Bear has some serious health problems and he's only six.
 
- The smell does not appear to be originating from the mouth.  My vet and I
  have both smelled bad breath from mouth and teeth problems and this is
  different. We can't see anything obviously wrong.
- We suspect he has lymphoma. An x-ray taken 4 weeks ago was evaluated by
  an expert who said he had either pneumonia or lymphoma.  He responded
  positively to a longer than average (three week) course of antibiotics
  and slipped back 3 days after the antibiotics were discontinued (may have
  been a coincidence).  The x-ray taken Tuesday is being sent back to the
  same expert but my vet can see that there is a spot on the right lung
  lobe.  It also appears that the other lung may have collapsed or at least
  pulled away from the chest wall.  The heart is also moved to one side.
  No external lymph glands are enlarged.
- Contrary to my liking, we started him on prednisone. He was unable to
  breathe, had no energy, and was constantly coughing even on Lasix.  Now
  I've seen a huge improvement in just a couple of days.  At least now he
  can breathe and he actually played for a few minutes this morning.
- He's on Timmy's recipe and loves it (this would have been my first choice
  for treatment by itself).
 
Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
 
    -Carla Almaraz
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[Posted in FML issue 2247]