Ike's Story
Mar. 4th, 2008 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
outsdrLast Thursday, I picked up a bag of raw hide chew bones for Ike. He likes to chase them, and I got some that were about four inches long, so I could throw them down the hallway at home and he could chase them and play with them inside. When it's cold outside, his joints freeze up and he can't play for very long.
He chases the first one, comes back to his bed under my computer desk, and begins to gnaw on it, like he has so many times before. Ten minutes later, I look down, and it's gone. A little quicker than usual, but I get him a new one and he chases it down. We play fetch for awhile, and then he goes to sleep without eating this bone.
Friday afternoon, Ike walks into Andy's room and farts. At least, that's what Andy thought until he turned around and finds out that Ike had diarrhea. Thankfully, we have a carpet cleaner. It's unusual for Ike to have diarrhea, let alone have it so bad that he has an accident in the house.
Saturday afternoon, Ike starts retching and I get him outside before he throws up some yellow frothy bile.
Saturday night, both Andy and I had to work overnight at the hotel while I did the internet station installation. When we got home a little after 6 Sunday morning, I find that Ike has had another accident, right inside the front door.
Our carpet cleaner is somewhat under-powered, as it turns out.
Sunday afternoon, I get up at 2:30. Ike gets up too, and eats some of his food while I'm in the bathroom. I'm putting in my contacts, and turn around just in time to see Ike vomiting all of his food outside the open bathroom door. I clean it up, he goes and lies down. I take him out every few hours, and he still has diarrhea. It's looking more and more watery each time. He's ignoring his food, but drinking plenty of water.
Monday morning, he still has diarrhea, so we head off to my regular vet. She's recently purchased some long runner rugs for here concrete floors, especially for dogs like Ike. Ike has hip dysplasia and bad arthritis in his front legs- walking on slick surfaces means he has to tense his muscles more tightly to keep his feet from slipping, and this hurts him. He HATES linoleum and concrete and slick floors. The terrify him. So the rugs were a really nice touch on the part of my vet, and one of the reasons why I like her so much. She really does care for Ike. I explain the situation to her, she gives Ike a quick going over and gives me some pills for his stomach. Ike takes 50 milligrams daily of Duramaxx, an anti-inflammatory, to help with his hips and his arthritis. Jewel thinks it might be irritating his stomach, so she gives me some pills for his stomach and asks me to try to collect a stool sample from him, and I take Ike home, then head to work.
I head back home to take Ike outside, as I don't want him to have another accident inside the house- the carpet cleaner is still cooling down. I take Ike outside, he pees, then starts wandering around. I follow him to the back yard, and suddenly a veritable fountain of red watery diarrhea explodes from his hindquarters and arcs for about four feet in a continual stream. I've never seen anything like it outside of a horror movie. And I'm definitely horrified. Andy comes out to look- he thinks the liquid looks brown; I think it looks red. We both agree that it has one of the foulest odors there's ever been. Even though I am color blind and Andrew is not, I just can't shake how bloody it looks to me. I get a sandwich bag, scoop up some of the stained snow, and rush off to the vet.
Jewel agrees that it's bloody. She decides to prepare it for lab testing to check for salmonella (Apparently it's possible for raw hide bones to be infected with it, which I never knew), and that we should keep watching him. If he doesn't get any better, she said she'd x-ray him. I'm literally choked up with worry at this point, and ask if we can't just go ahead and do the x-rays anyway. I'm terrified at this point that he has a perforated bowel. Even growing up on a farm, I've never seen anything like that streaming jet of fluid. She agrees.
I drive back home, dash an email off to the office to let them know what's happening, load up Ike, drive back to the vet, and help her take some x-rays. The x-rays show some odd things in his gut that Jewel can't really identify. She has arthritis in her hand, and currently, she's not able to do any surgery or too much exploration herself, so she arranges for me to take Ike to the local animal hospital.
He chases the first one, comes back to his bed under my computer desk, and begins to gnaw on it, like he has so many times before. Ten minutes later, I look down, and it's gone. A little quicker than usual, but I get him a new one and he chases it down. We play fetch for awhile, and then he goes to sleep without eating this bone.
Friday afternoon, Ike walks into Andy's room and farts. At least, that's what Andy thought until he turned around and finds out that Ike had diarrhea. Thankfully, we have a carpet cleaner. It's unusual for Ike to have diarrhea, let alone have it so bad that he has an accident in the house.
Saturday afternoon, Ike starts retching and I get him outside before he throws up some yellow frothy bile.
Saturday night, both Andy and I had to work overnight at the hotel while I did the internet station installation. When we got home a little after 6 Sunday morning, I find that Ike has had another accident, right inside the front door.
Our carpet cleaner is somewhat under-powered, as it turns out.
Sunday afternoon, I get up at 2:30. Ike gets up too, and eats some of his food while I'm in the bathroom. I'm putting in my contacts, and turn around just in time to see Ike vomiting all of his food outside the open bathroom door. I clean it up, he goes and lies down. I take him out every few hours, and he still has diarrhea. It's looking more and more watery each time. He's ignoring his food, but drinking plenty of water.
Monday morning, he still has diarrhea, so we head off to my regular vet. She's recently purchased some long runner rugs for here concrete floors, especially for dogs like Ike. Ike has hip dysplasia and bad arthritis in his front legs- walking on slick surfaces means he has to tense his muscles more tightly to keep his feet from slipping, and this hurts him. He HATES linoleum and concrete and slick floors. The terrify him. So the rugs were a really nice touch on the part of my vet, and one of the reasons why I like her so much. She really does care for Ike. I explain the situation to her, she gives Ike a quick going over and gives me some pills for his stomach. Ike takes 50 milligrams daily of Duramaxx, an anti-inflammatory, to help with his hips and his arthritis. Jewel thinks it might be irritating his stomach, so she gives me some pills for his stomach and asks me to try to collect a stool sample from him, and I take Ike home, then head to work.
I head back home to take Ike outside, as I don't want him to have another accident inside the house- the carpet cleaner is still cooling down. I take Ike outside, he pees, then starts wandering around. I follow him to the back yard, and suddenly a veritable fountain of red watery diarrhea explodes from his hindquarters and arcs for about four feet in a continual stream. I've never seen anything like it outside of a horror movie. And I'm definitely horrified. Andy comes out to look- he thinks the liquid looks brown; I think it looks red. We both agree that it has one of the foulest odors there's ever been. Even though I am color blind and Andrew is not, I just can't shake how bloody it looks to me. I get a sandwich bag, scoop up some of the stained snow, and rush off to the vet.
Jewel agrees that it's bloody. She decides to prepare it for lab testing to check for salmonella (Apparently it's possible for raw hide bones to be infected with it, which I never knew), and that we should keep watching him. If he doesn't get any better, she said she'd x-ray him. I'm literally choked up with worry at this point, and ask if we can't just go ahead and do the x-rays anyway. I'm terrified at this point that he has a perforated bowel. Even growing up on a farm, I've never seen anything like that streaming jet of fluid. She agrees.
I drive back home, dash an email off to the office to let them know what's happening, load up Ike, drive back to the vet, and help her take some x-rays. The x-rays show some odd things in his gut that Jewel can't really identify. She has arthritis in her hand, and currently, she's not able to do any surgery or too much exploration herself, so she arranges for me to take Ike to the local animal hospital.
