A Scare

[sea4th]

This past Sunday, Joe, my right hand boy, did not touch his food. Joe is not a picky eater. None of my dogs are. So when they have no interest in food, I worry --- A LOT -- "freak" might be a better word.

 

I monitored him all day. He threw up twice, copious amounts including the few pieces of kibble he ate and later, just water. He was down, not himself, and I tried to convince myself that it was just the doggie flu, and not a blockage. It would soon pass. I crated him all night so I could keep track of any more vomiting episodes he might have. Although there were none, he still was down and disinterested in his food on Monday. And no bowel movements. I could feel that worry vice grip tightening on my head and on my insides.

 

Twice over the years, I've had two dogs with blockages. One did well, the other died. I called my vet. She's out of town this week, so I had to find a closer clinic --- something I've been meaning to do anyway for emergencies. I found one a few miles from home and made an appointment for Wednesday morning.

 

On the way home from work on Monday, I stopped and bought kefir, a whole chicken, already roasted -- supper for me, but mainly to entice Joe to eat, ground beef, rice, chicken broth. I was ready to cook if need be!

 

Got home. Joe is still not himself. I ripped a few pieces off the chicken and offered it to him. If that wouldn't pique his interest, then I'd know we were facing something far worse than doggie flu. He did manage to eat a few pieces and turned his nose up at the kefir (I forced him to take a few tsp's of it) and left it at that.

 

Tuesday morning. He was feeling better and ate some more of the chicken along with the kefir - with a little more gusto, and now that he had something in his gut, his gut went into action. I watched him hoping his attempt to crap would be productive. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but few people could appreciate how happy I was to see that turd emerging. Thing is, it kept coming out and coming out and still no end in sight and by now Joe had about 10 inches of something hanging out his butt. I knew right away what it was. It was one of my trouser socks. I gently pulled it the rest of the way out. It sort of came out with a suction sound. ( Yesterday, I had my old Joe back, and although he can be a real punk of a dog, I couldn't be mad at him.

 

Joe is 7 yrs. old. From the time he was a pup, he'd pull the scrungies out of my hair while I slept and eat them. I'd find my missing scrungies cleaning up the dog yard. Joe then graduated to my black trouser socks. It got to the point where if I noticed one missing, I'd no longer blame it on the sock-eating dryer. I'd just wait for that "hacka hacka hacka BLAAAP" in the middle of the night, followed by a slimy black sock on the carpet. He hasn't done that for a few years now. The only thing I can think of is that Joe rummaged through the laundry basket.

 

(And no, I will not be washing that sock I got out of his butt and find it's mate somewhere laundry basket.)

 

Worry over ---- until the next time. subtract 3-5 yrs. from my life.

[PSmitty]

Oh, man, I feel your pain. Lilly ate one of my trouser socks a couple of years ago. Only she puked it back up about 3 days later. I was never so happy to have a dog barf on my bed at 3:00 AM!

 

Glad to hear Joe is feeling better!

[WildFlower]

Oh gosh. I would be all sorts of worried too! Most people think I am nuts about how attentive I am to digestion. And I don't even have a "sock" eater - at least that I am aware of!

 

Glad everything is ok.

[Cody & Duchess]

So glad to read the good ending. I know what you mean.......you worry so much you cannot sleep or really do anything else productive. Thank goodness for the chicken.

[Cody & Duchess]

Sorry-hit the submit button two times.

[WyoBC]

That's scary. I'm glad you at least found it. Now you have a pair again. I can't believe he ate it though. That would be hard to eat whole! I'm glad he's ok. I have one of those -5 years stories. I was in casper for supplies and went into a store so I just left black jack in the car loose. He had never done anything before so why not? But I came back to find a cup cake wrapper in the front seat and white cream on his face. Everything turned out good but now I call him cup cake

[flyer]

Now that's funny, now

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

That's scary. I'm glad you at least found it. Now you have a pair again. I can't believe he ate it though. That would be hard to eat whole! I'm glad he's ok. I have one of those -5 years stories. I was in casper for supplies and went into a store so I just left black jack in the car loose. He had never done anything before so why not? But I came back to find a cup cake wrapper in the front seat and white cream on his face. Everything turned out good but now I call him cup cake

 

 

You sound like one of our adopters. Their weimer lives with a 95 year old aunt days and she kept swearing she was missing a sock. (blaming everyone but the dog mind you) Well she was right when the evidence was reproduced days later. Her grand nephew kept asking her if she wanted it back.

[urge to herd]

Yep, you are preaching to the choir, but I've smiled many times at the sight of a firm, well formed, normally colored stool emerging from one of goofball's hind end. It's a relief, in more ways than one

 

Glad everything is all right, but you might want to put your laundry basket behind a locked and bolted door.

 

Ruth

[Sue R]

I have always considered a puppy (or even a dog that gets into mischief like a pup) to be the best incentive for picking up after oneself. Works like a charm on hubbies and small children, if I remind them enough!

[sea4th]

I must say, I've become complacent since the last pup I had is now 3 yrs. old - Dinah - and Dinah was a good puppy.

It was a good method for teaching my kids when they were growing up, to not leave anything lying around.

 

Although I don't drop and leave clothes on the floor, I leave my shoes around. That's not an issue, but Joe sort of surprised me by doing what he did. I have the laundry basket in a bedroom closet. The door must have been open a little bit because Joe is good at using one of his toes to open doors, and got to the laundry basket that way, or since the sock was black, maybe I dropped it carrying a load of laundry and it fell into the shadows somewhere, where I couldn't see it.

 

After Pete came into my life, I learned to make sure dresser drawers were closed all the way, because I can't tell you how many times I came dripping out of the shower to go in my underwear drawer to find soggy and slimy tennis balls in with all the "personal items". Pete loved to throw in toys in containers -- and did I ever tell you about the 100 dollar plus plumbing bill when Pete saw I was getting ready to flush the toilet, he ran and got his knuckle bone and threw it in the toilet as it was flushing. Pete never chewed though. Gawd, I miss that dog.

 

The dog that survived an intestinal blockage is Tam. He had 18 inches of necrotic bowel removed along with a portion of a rubber ball. I took the dogs running in the high school football field just after it was mowed. Tam is a dog who never played with toys, so it was unusual that he picked this cut-in-half rubber ball to begin with.

 

The other dog was a very sweet pup of about 10 months, Obi, a rescue, who loved to check out the kitchen counters. One day, I had come back with a bag of a couple of peaches I bought at a roadside stand and put them on the counter. Obi snuck down during the middle of the night and ate both of them. The next day he was vomiting a lot and I took him in. It was a peach pit stuck right past the duodenum. They did surgery, and were going to keep him overnight on IV's -- except that his white cell count was going the wrong way. They kept him another night and I came to visit him after work. Obi was on IV's doped up but he recognized me. Later that evening, I got a call from the vet asking my permission to open him up because he was getting worse instead of better. What they found was that the sutures inside came apart, the two ends of the intestine had separated and Obi's entire abdominal cavity was contaminated. The vet called me back, and asked if I wanted to run up and say good-bye. He was still in the surgery. I didn't. I said good-bye to Obi probably about the time they euthanized him.

 

So, some hard lessons learned. Thing is with Joe, I was REALLY frightened, because I'm tapped out -- broke --- after 1000.00 worth of surgery on my self castrating dog. I haven't had time to financially recover when this happened.

 

Oh, and Juta, my mt. dog, taught me not to leave dishes in the sink overnight. She helps herself to pots and pans, plates, and finishes up with wooden spoons that apparently she loves as chew toys. And the pots and pans I would find on the floor the next morning were spotless!!!

[WyoBC]

That's rough Vicki. I'm sorry for your loss. Its never easy to say good by.

[Valorie]

Vicki~

 

Hi, I'm glad Joe is feeling better, what a relief.

 

I wanted to post because I had a peach pit incident as well. Josie our first border collie was 11 at the time. She was getting up there in age, had arthritis and also starting to show signs of kidney failure. One day we came home from work, (my in-laws had just left from visiting - they're not dog people and I think she waited for them to leave), and found that she had thrown up in the house numerous places. In the closets, under neath tables, I think she felt bad for doing so, and was trying to hide each time. We have a doggie door, so she may have thrown up outside as well. Anyway, several calls to emergency vets and finally found a local vet who was willing to take her in that night. Put her on fluids, ran test after test, x-rays etc. I can't remember what all the tests showed, it's been three years ago now, but the x-ray showed nothing. This went on for three days... she wasn't really improving. On Friday night he asked us to take her home and see if she might feel better at home. She was miserable, up and down all night long, could not get comfortable, wimpering alot. I knew something was horribly wrong and I knew I could not put her through another night or day like that. At 6 a.m. I called him and I said either we open her up to see what's going on or we put her to sleep because I will not have her suffering like this. He was reluctant to operate because of her age and her kidney situation. Finally he agreed. About 12:30 that afternoon (a Saturday) he opened her up. Almost immediately his wife came out into the waiting room and said he found something... a peach pit. He could tell where it had gotten stuck and then moved a bit, gotten stuck again and then moved a bit more. Where it was then, it was not moving, and not going to move, no matter what. Poor thing, no wonder she was so miserable!! Surgery lasted less than 30 minutes. We went and sat with her in recovery, she was shaking so bad. Next day she felt better and Monday we brought her home. She was like a new dog again. We ended up losing her (pts) to kidney disease about five months later. I know that it took a horrible toll on her and she likely would have lived a lot longer, if not for the peach pit incident. The vet said it should have passed, but it was a large one and that sharp pointey end just kept catching on her. All those little holes in the pit are also a haven for bacteria, not a good scenario.

 

We have a compost pile out behind the horse barn. It's not fenced or anything. I'm sure I just tossed a peach over there that was going bad and never thought anything about it. She found herself a treat. God knows how long that thing was in her. I'll never do that again. And I'll always remember a peach pit will not show up on an x-ray.

 

Hope everyones dogs are healthy and passing everything just fine. Rest in peace sweet Josie!!

[Frogs & Dogs]

Wow, these stories are crazy. I had no idea dogs would eat socks. I almost crapped my pants the other day when a rubber band turned up in Kit's poop. Normally I'm very careful about picking stuff up around the house, but I hosted a party last weekend and apparently one of my guests wasn't so careful. The good thing is I couldn't be worried, because I didn't know anything was amiss until she was already out of danger.

[geonni banner]

We had a saying in the part of Texas where I spent part of my childhood:

 

Shakin' like a dog sh*tin' a peach pit.

 

I had a friend who had a Vizsla that used to swallow panty-hose. He had three 1000 dollar plus surgeries. The fourth pair took him out - pet-sitter didn't know about the symptoms. I could never understand how she let it happen twice, let alone four times. Lost a good dog - triple champion - conformation, field & obedience.

My friends think I'm OCD about my house and watching like a hawk every time my dog's head goes down too long outside, but I'm determined to prevent the foreign body scenario from taking my dog out.

[nancy in AZ]

Jill is not only a counter surfer, she's a counter jumper. Usually she confines these acts of misbehavior to when I'm out. I've learned never to leave any food out on the counters. My kitchen has a peninsula configuration and a baby gate blocks the opening between the kitchen and dining area. She jumps the baby gate. Then I put up a soji screen in front of the baby gate. That worked for a while until she started jumping directly on top of the breakfast bar, so that was no longer a viable solution. For a while I was lulled into a false sense of security since when there was no food left out she would see for herself there was nothing there and leave with no reward for her efforts. She'd always confined her mayhem to food related items. One day a couple of weeks ago I came home and she had chewed open the prescription bottle containing Boo's antihisitimines. She evidently didn't find them appealing because they were scattered all over the living room. So I removed them.

 

A few days later when I was leaving home I scanned the counters. There was a french baguette out. I placed it on top of the refrigerator. When I came home, the wrapper was on the kitchen floor along with scattered crumbs. The calendar that is normally attached with magnets to the side of the refrigerator was on the floor.

 

Last week she ate the contents of an unopened bottle of vitamin E gel caps as well as the remainder of a bottle of fish oil caps (I think she shared these with Kit). How she managed to unscrew the bottle caps I don't know. They were not chewed. In one case the bottle had disappeared and I still haven't found it. I called the vet who suggested she'll likely have diarreah, but not much else to worry about. I dragged out the crate and started reintroducing her to it gradually. She was very resisant and I didn't want to throw her in and leave for a few hours, so I started working up to putting her in a bit at a time, and rewarding her for going in on her own, if only for a moment or two. Still wasn't prepared to leave her for a few hours in it yet.

 

Last Sunday afternoon I took the two big dogs for a hike on the trail. Jill stayed home. Before I left, I scanned the kitchen counters. There is one where I keep dog treats in a small basket along with daily supplements for the dogs and Otis' concoctions. Jill has never jumprd onto that counter because it's isolated from all the rest (between the fridge and the pantry) and rather narrow and dark and confined. Otis's prescription pergolide and Boo's antihistimines are kept there. But, I placed them in the drawer anyway. Unfortunately, I missed the open bag of Hershey's foil wrapped halloween chocolate variety pack that were buried in the bottom of the basket...you can draw your own conclusions.

 

She didn't bother with eating the wrappers so I had a pretty good idea of how much she consumed. I went to the internet and started doing calculations. My mind doesn't work very efficiently under duress. Next, I immediately dosed her with hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting. Nothing came up. Did it again after 20 minutes. Nothing but a little spittle. Threw her in the car and went to the nearest drugstore to purchase activated charcoal. They were all out. Drove up the street to Walgreen's and bought a bottle (which is ridiculously expensive, considering the ingredients) raced home, made a slurry and injected it into her mouth with a syringe. It also re-decorated my walls, floor and clothing. Then I called the vet's answering service and when the vet on call phoned me I put her on alert. She didn't think it would be enough to warrant bringing her in so I watched her closely for effects of toxicity. Theobromine, the toxic ingredient in cocoa has a very long half life and I knew that it had the potential to affect her up until the following afternoon. She never exhibited any sign of discomfort or out of the ordinary behavior. I, however, was a wreck. When she had a completely normal stool the next day, I did a happy dance. She barks and cries in her crate.