Sick as a Dog

Ok, so following on from the previous post my husband dearest was a tad bit affronted when he read about his clean up contributions and reminded me of one particularly nasty dog poo disaster that beckoned my husbands attention at 3:am in the morning. Apparently it took over an hour to sort out (I can't comment on the accuracy of that statement as I was happily tucked up in the land of nod, let's just say he's been known to embellish his chore times on occasion...)

Anyhow. The culprit was not my lady dog. This was in fact the work of our brand new pup. I almost entitled this blog 'Be careful what you wish for' as to the nature as to how this wee K9 ended up in our family pack. Our little lady had been the center of attention before the kiddies came along, and although we try so hard to give her much loving, she can't win enough of her Mommy's attention anymore.

Her neglect had been playing on my mind, even more so when we found out about our newest bun cooking away, and I realized that her minimal attention was at risk of dwindling further. ""She really needs a play buddy" I just so happened to mention to my hubbie early December last year. I should have known he'd have taken me at my word.

However, this baby brain makes me slower to read the warning signs, and even when he mumbled something about an early Christmas present, when he called me from work, did I not suspect a thing. And then the loveliest and scrawniest snow-white mutt appears in Daddy's arms when he arrives home from work. On a trial basis I was assured, just to see how he gets on with our girl.

But this baby was NEVER going anywhere. Once he set paw inside the cabin he was one of the family, and he so desperately needed a Momma to get him on the right track. He was sickly and itchy and so skinny his ribs were protruding through his white fur coat. Other than those initial but minor health issue, the little dog seemed timid but lovely and although I warned my husband he needed to be checked over at the vets before we committed to him staying I was 100% sure that we'd hit the jackpot.

Then he got sick. Really sick. At first we though it was just depression. It started about a week after he arrived home. He lost all interest in eating. Then came the runs, followed by a nasty yellowish foam puke. The vet happened to mention it could be Parvo (or any of a number of viruses), so we started treading it as such, which meant an antibiotic to try and stop the diarrhea and spewing, and keep him hydrated and fed while he hopefully pulled himself through.

Throughout his illness our pup impressed us no end by waiting until he got outside to splatter his diarrhea. We only suffered one occasion inside the house, which was the 3:00am incident mentioned earlier. The poop was so watery it had leached beneath the side cabinet and underneath a gap in the skirting board (which had to be pulled off to eradicate the stinky gloop). We don't know how he had his bowels under such great restraint, but I knew he was a keeper, if he made it.

Éven after our visit to the vet we weren't seriously worried, until we Googled Parvo; apparently on of the nastiest puppy killer viruses around. About a week went by without eating. We'd managed to hand feed him the odd bite of kibble here and there but generally speaking he was slowly starving to death. We'd tried tempting him with none doggy foods like cheese and scraps but he only turned his head away. By day 6 he was all skin and bone and that evening he started shaking furiously on his doggy bed.

Again I turned to Google for ideas and among all the doom and gloom I eventually stumbled across a bulletin board where a lady had recommended feeding baby food to someone's sick puppy. Genius! And we had more than enough meat pots to share as our baby had just started turning his nose up at them. I got out a beef and gravy pot and eagerly poured it into his bowl. I held the bowl near is mouth and he was interested enough to look. After I let him lick a bit off my finger and the response was immediate. He licked the bowl clean in seconds.

That night I fed him a couple of pots every couple of hours or so waiting to see if he was able to hold it down and by morning I was mixing in carrots and peas. Inside of 24 hours we were mixing in a few kibble biscuits and the day after that he was back to his greedy puppy self. Thank you very much Beech Nut!!

Now he's all better again, we're not sure what the virus was, or in how much danger he had actually been in. Although most of our friends that have experienced Parvo in some shape or form are pretty doubtful that we've had the cruel virus within our midst as our puppy 'managed to beat it (whatever it was). Dad is pretty convinced that without the baby food we'd have had a dead dog in our cabin that next morning. I'm not sure if coincidentally he wouldn't have turned it around himself that same night. But it doesn't matter. We've scored a superb dog, and a great pal for our lady, who won't give her new play buddy a break.