Wednesday 21 January 2015

illness

The last week of July, both my dogs were sick.

We had been in Guelph on the weekend, visiting with Karen (Spark), Brooke (Canyon, Cessna, Rogue, and baby Arizona), and Karol (Winston). Monday morning I took them to a nearby park to run around for a few minutes. There was nobody around, so they had fun chasing each other around. I looked away for only a few minutes, to pick up after them.

Ace is crated (due to his gluttonous tendencies) but Piper was left loose while I was at work. I came home at lunch to let them out for a pee, and found Piper had puked up all her breakfast in my bedroom. Annoying, but sometimes dogs just puke. I didn't really worry about it too much. Cleaned it up and went back to work.

When I came home from work, I found bloody vomit and diahrrea on my front mat. Somethinthing was definitely wrong. I cleaned up and took her outside. She was definitely lethargic. Once the hallway was reasonably clear, I went to get Ace out of his crate, and found his crate full of the same - bloody vomit and diahrrea. I immediately started making vet calls. After a few tries, I found a vet able to see us. When I took them outside, I snagged a stool sample to take with us - we loaded into the car and saw the vet within about 15 minutes.

The vet looked them over, determined that yes they were lethargic, yes blood coming out both ends was not good, and was able to rule out poison. Not able to rule out something communicable, or some kind of poisonous plant. It was very scary. She was kind enough to spend about an hour and a half with us, and went through the options very thoroughly. She gave them an injection to stop the vomiting and sent us home with antibiotics.

It took both dogs nearly a week to recover their energy, and I never really found out what cause the illness. None of the other dogs we were in contact with ever got sick. And because they were both sick within a few hours of each other, I suspected they perhaps ate a plant of some kind at the park that morning. Even though I only had my back turned for a few seconds, and even though Piper NEVER grazes. 

It was a very scary experience for me and my normally healthy dogs.


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