A unilateral nosebleed is what pushed us from the ‘wait and see if it is allergies or rhinitis’ to the CT scan.  The ER vet, while trying to be cautious, pretty much spelled it out for us.  If your dog is bleeding from one side of their nose, they have a problem.  He said it can be other things besides cancer but it is normally bad.  His abruptness was appreciated but not extremely helpful at 12am.

Nunya had different type of discharge from her nose during the cancer experience.   Initially it was just ‘snot’ with lots of sneezing.  The sneezing turned into reverse sneezing and then we hit the bloody stage.

What we learned about her nosebleeds:

If we could control the panic and limit the sneezing, we could get a clot to form in there long enough for the bleeding to stop.  We really didn’t perfect this until the end.

We learned that if we would put our hand under her chin she would not do a head shaking sneeze that would blow out the clot.  We did not hold her face – just the feeling of the hand worked.

Staying calm was the biggest help.  If we did not panic, Nunya stayed calmer.  All the blood can be scary for the dog, and once their blood pressure goes up with the stress, it is much harder to slow down the bleeding.

The product Little Noses was helpful in stopping smaller nosebleeds.  A drop or two in the nose would help ease up the bleeding and allow the clot to form.  For worse nosebleeds that will not stop, your veterinarian will be able to give your dog epinephrine in the nose that will help stop the bleeding.  Our vet was nice enough to give us a diluted supply of epinephrine to keep on hand in the fridge to help with major nosebleeds.  Fortunately we did not need to use it frequently.

For those needing to compare, here is a gallery of photos from one of Nunya’s nosebleeds.  The images contain blood.