Little Baby Doozer

That dog scared the hell out of us this weekend.

On Sunday morning I woke up and came downstairs, and Sprocket was jumping around like “LET’S GO LET’S GO WALKS LET’S GO OUUUUUUUUT”. Doozer, though, was just kind of laying there. I called him, and he ambled out to the kitchen door, where he allowed me to put his leash on, and out we went. But he was weird. Sprocket was dashing everywhere, doing the normal morning thing… but Doozer was walking like an old arthritic man. So slowly. And he kept stopping and refusing to walk. At one point I had to pick him up and carry him, because he decided to lay down on the side of the road.

Not normal, and not good.

After a bit, I put him down, and the first thing he did was to spray diarrhea all over our yard. Like big gushing fountains of liquid coming out of his bottom. And then he laid down again.

When we got in the house, Sprocket was running around. Doozer went up to his spot on the back of the couch and laid there looking sad. I put a towel under him because who knows what might happen? Then I noticed it – a huge puddle of dog puke beside the dog bed. And another puddle of puke beside the chair. And another by the TV. And one in the kitchen. There were seven dog barf puddles in all. I woke up Rob, and told him Doozer was sick. He called the vet. They said just to watch him, to not let him have any food, to make sure that he was getting small amounts of water every half hour or so (we have a syringe left from when they were puppies and learning to drink) and to call again if things got worse.

Well, things got worse. More diarrhea. Over and over and over again. More barfing. Not being able to jump up on the couch. Hardly being able to walk. If he was sitting up, he didn’t know how to lay down – we had to lay him down. When he was laying down, he didn’t really know how to get up. It was bad.

I of course consulted Dr. Google, which did absolutely NOTHING to alleviate my fears. You all know how I freak out about sick dogs. Well. It turns out that even if they’ve been vaccinated, dogs can still get parvo. Because there are different strains! Oprah’s dogs had it! And they died! And it can live in the ground! My dogs are on the ground all day every day!

So, at about 8h30 pm, when he had thrown up what looked like all the water he’d had in the past hour, and was still trying to puke but had nothing left in his stomach, I had Rob call the vet again. The vet, again, said not to worry, and to just keep watching them. Rob said “Actually if you don’t mind, we’ll bring him in, because my wife is about to have a nervous breakdown”.

So we drove half an hour to the emergency vet’s, where an extremely tall man let us in, poked at him, took his temperature (the look of surprise on Doozer’s face was almost worth it. “WHAT IS IN MY BUM?”). He weighed him (13 lbs! mighty Doozer) then gave him some subcutaneous fluids since he was starting to get dehydrated. He also gave him an injection of an anti-emetic, which got him stoned. He was laying there with his mouth hanging open because he couldn’t remember how to close it. He gave us a bottle of dog kaopectate (beef flavoured!) with instructions to give it to him four times a day, and off home we came. Medications and injections: $32. Having the vet come in at 9 pm: $100.

As soon as we got home, I put Doozer up on the couch with me. On a towel. Good thing, too, because he had couch diarrhea. Then he jumped down and had floor diarrhea. Then outside diarrhea. But – no more puking. At about 1 am, Rob sent me to bed, because I had been up since 5h45 on Sunday morning. I woke up at 5, and sent Rob to bed. The one thing that concerned us was that there seemed to be blood in what he was pooping now. Scary. I actually crawled around behind him and put a plastic cup under his bum to catch what was coming out, in case we needed a sample. Then I called the vet’s office and told the receptionist what was going on. She said she’d have the vet call back when he got in (I called at 7h30 am) and meanwhile to just give the kaopectate, keep up with the water, and see if he wanted to start trying to eat (he’d been refusing all food since the day before). I boiled up some rice and chicken. He didn’t really want to eat it.

The vet never did call back (they’re probably thinking “Oh Jesus THAT WOMAN we already told her that he’ll be fine and there’s nothing more to do), but eventually Doozer started to feel better. At about 2 pm, my friend came over and he LEAPED off the couch and started jumping around her. I was amazed, because compared to the dude who couldn’t move the night before, this was miraculous. Then he started eating.

So. He’s still only having rice and chicken, and getting kaopectate four times a day. His poops are starting to get more solid but they’re still pretty gross (but no blood! yay!) and I’m disgusted by the state of his tail right now. But he’s not dying. And I threw away the poop cup this morning.

Now, with those words, I will leave you – please to not be too grossed out by me.