Dog Days

Ok, so we have this beautiful nine year old dog named Milli, who is a mixed breed German Shepherd and Lab. She is very smart, easy to train and loves to eat poop. Any kind of poop. The one thing we could never train her out of was eating poop. She can be seen on any given morning scouring the misty grass with her nose down to the ground hunting for those delicious treats. Porcupine poop, rabbit poop and especially chicken poop. Her favourite is late winter icy-poops.

Yes, we call her a way when we catch her but as a country dog we can either keep her inside all of the time or let her go out and try to limit her consumption. Now, I know dogs eat all kinds of terrible things and they are somewhat designed for it but Milli gets sick the day after eating poop quite frequently. For years she has snacked poops, been fine for that day but then vomits twice the next day, seeks long grass to help the job and won't touch her dog food. It passes and she is fine after a day. We have gotten used to this and though we try and limit it, it is a fact of life.

Last Sunday I noticed her partaking and immediately called her in, telling her "no poops!" The next morning at 7 am I was informed by a miserable and sleep deprived husband that "the dog was up puking all night". I slept through it as he got up and cleaned it up! I believe this is retribution for my inability to ever sleep through a night in my first four years as a mother, and my husband's ability to sleep through most of it or at the very least return easily to slumber once the crisis of the moment was adjourned.

The dog threw up a bunch of times and wouldn't eat. We were not alarmed, we have been down this road. Day two of it, we felt for her but still, not shocking. By day three I was staying home and cooking chicken stock so the poor thing would eat something and force feeding her water. She wouldn't eat, but she also wasn't throwing up much. She drank the broth and some water and I figured she was on the mend.

On the fourth day I did as my expert "googlers" told me and mixed the third batch of homemade chicken broth with rice and told her to  eat it. She did and the next morning I woke up to "mom the dog threw up again". I ate breakfast first of all, having learned that if I clean up puke first thing, there is no chance of me managing to eat before noon having gone queasy. I hunted and found seven piles neatly hidden behind and under things. Ok. Apparently rice not good. I went back to cooking chicken broth for the dog and she wouldn't touch it, or water.  I spent the next 12 hours in my kitchen cooking up anything I could think of to get liquid and food into the dog. I made homemade pedialyte (puppyialyte), which she wouldn't drink, broth, milky-water, and buttered popcorn with nutritional yeast as she likes this quite a bit. More and more bowls assembled near her dog dish. She wouldn't touch most of it. At one point I was hand feeding the popcorn to her and she was eating it. I was so delighted but less so when I discovered she rejected all but the most butter coated morsels. Apparently she is a very picky dog. She drank a tiny bit of water and we were on our way.

I went back to Doctor Google and checked the dog for signs of dehydration. I was in crises mode and she was hardly drinking. I took her outside and held her mouth open and dumped water into it. She wouldn't even look at me for the rest of the night. Later I took her outside and got her to play in the sprinkler which is her favourite game just to trick her into having some water. Anyway, I still wasn't sure she would make it and I was estimating how many tablespoons of water she had consumed knowing it still wasn't enough. I added more butter to the popcorn and continued to force water into her but it wasn't much. We thought about taking her to the vet but couldn't get an appointment right away so instead we took her to the beach.

At the beach she chased another dog's ball, sniffed the seaweed and another dog's butt and basically had the best time. I limited her because I didn't want her to over exert herself. Her eyes were kind of vacant, her skin lacked elasticity and her gums were pale. She hadn't really eaten in many days. I pet her as we sat in the fog on the beach and wondered if this was the end, and if it was, I guess this was a pretty great last day for a dog.

She came home, drank a bunch of water and the broth-pediatlyte mixture and DID NOT THROW UP! Miracle. She has been eating more and more and from what I can tell has made a complete recovery. We will head for the vet and get her checked out but for right now I am happily not cleaning up dog barf or trying to get the dog to eat and drink. Did I mention we had an Open House  yesterday. I was just hoping I found all of the puddles as that would not be a selling feature.

This morning when I let her out for a pee I caught her sniffing longingly at some old chicken poo, I gave her a warning and she came in deprived of her favourite treat and I swear she gave me a dirty look.