Warning: “Diarrhea” Is Mentioned Frequently In This Post
The dogs recently went through several bouts of liquid diarrhea. First was Mina, who got rushed to the emergency vet when we spotted blood in her poop. About $500 later, we found out her bloodwork was fine, her urine normal, temperature normal, and everything evidently just peachy keen, other than some slight dehydration caused by all the diarrhea, and the liquid poo running from her bottom.
They gave her some IV fluids, and sent us home with some kind of canine equivalent of Imodium that needed to be given for about a week.
About a week and a half later, I came home from work to a smell so hideous that I wanted to vomit. Apparently Paco had now succumbed to the diarrhea. I called our regular vet, and the vet tech/receptionist who answered the phone tried to convince us that the problem was related to their food.
“It’s that premium kibble,” she said. “It doesn’t have preservatives in it.”
I was deeply suspicious of this answer, since we’d been feeding the same bag of food since Mina got sick, and yet the dogs were getting sick at different times. So I brought Paco to the vet, where we got the same medication for diarrhea that the ER had given Mina. They found nothing physically wrong with him, other than his weight, which was still too high after two years of getting half the food of the other dogs.
When I told Chris that Paco still needed to lose another pound and a half, Chris was optimistic.
“Maybe the diarrhea will speed up the weight loss,” he said hopefully.
Two weeks later, just as Paco was nearly over his diarrhea, Stanley began having diarrhea. By now we were getting used to this, and I immediately put him on boiled chicken and rice, and off we went to the vet. He was apparently in great shape, just like the other dogs.
“It could be something they ate,” the vet said. “Or worms or parasites. Have they eaten anything unusual, gotten into any trash?”
“No,” I said. “Although we do have a rabbit that comes into the yard a lot, and…”
“Yes, they could have picked something up from the rabbit,” the vet said.
“So then they could get re-infected?” I asked. Horrified, I was now envisioning our house drowning in a sea of diarrhea . “The cycle will start all over again?”
“Well, it could,” he admitted, with the casual attitude of one who didn’t have three diarrhea-stricken dogs in a house that was about to be sold.
“If they start coming down with the diarrhea again, we’ll just worm them all,” he said.
And sure enough, Mina began to have diarrhea again while Stanley was still taking medication for his diarrhea. We were supposed to be out of our house within a few days, so we dosed everyone with the pills from the vet and kept an eye out for the rabbit.
I wasn’t happy about the dogs and their diarrhea, but I still couldn’t help but have a grudging admiration for the rabbit. It had taken her a year or two, but she’d finally gotten her revenge for the babies she’d had to abandon when Stanley dug them up.
Posted by: ssjane | July 8, 2008 | 10:36 am
Posted in: Dogs