It wouldn’t be blogging if I didn’t write about what’s going on with my pets. Recently, two of our three dogs came down with a very bad case of Montezuma’s Revenge. They stayed home while we cruised to Mexico, so I find that sadly ironic. It started a week after we’d returned from our trip, thankfully. That would’ve totally been a bummer coming off of vacation. It hasn’t been much fun for any of us, especially the dogs. it began Monday when we woke up for work. Laura Gail, luckily, gets up first and makes the discovery in the living room. I wasn’t the “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” kind of discovery. It was more along the lines of the scene in the movie “Ted” when they discover what the hooker had left. “There’s a SHIT in the living room!” was much more her attitude and response. I was happy that she’d been the one to find it, and even happier that she’d not stepped in it. I was much less happy with the realization that I would have to clean it up. It seems, after six years of marraige, that I have become the cleaner of bodily fluids of all makes and models. I suppose the fact that I regularly clean urine and feces up at work (working at a nursing home as a housekeeping supervisor and being a certified nurses aide has its perks) has forced upon me the responsibility of all hands-on clean ups of this variety at home. Now, don’t I feel special.
We have three dogs. Jack, a Beagle who is about 10 years old, but with the libido of much younger dog. My son, Mike, is the proud owner of Abbey, Jack’s daughter from a previous relationship. It was a tough break up, so I’ll save that story for later. Then we have Jill, a Pitt/Boxer mix who found it in her heart to rescue us a week before we lost our crotchety old MinPin (Pudge) to old age.
We suspected Abbey to be the culprit, at first. She’s normally skittish when things are shredded or soiled biologicaly. She shyed away nervously when we put the whole clan outside to clean up the several small ponds of visceral waste. Abbey is somewhat of a connoisser of all things. She’ll eat rocks. Not even tasty rocks. Or even just small rocks. She kind of reminds me of my son, Tim, at an early age. Discovery necessitates immediate olfactory trials, followed usually by depositing straight down the ole gullet. So she was the natural suspect. Since there were no other symptoms, such as lack of appetite, throwing up, etc, we figured we’d keep an eye on her and let it go. Tuesday morning there was more of the same, and even more when I returned home after work. My nose, and the mop, got quite the work out. We began to Sherlock Holmes what could this be. Same food as always. All three dogs eat the same Old Roy dog food. They’d all had the same “beggin strips” snack on Monday. Mike had given them a new toy on Monday also. Jill shredded it and Abbey managed to get a few licks in, but Laura Gail had taken it away from them and thrown it away. We’d give it one more day for the gushing to end before we took Abbey to the vet.
Wednesday morning we awoke to a clean floor, praise be to the God above who has kindly smiled up on us! We were sure as shootin that we’d mad it over the hump and were healthy rock eaters once more. No, dear reader, we had not. Wednesday afternoon, when I (Supreme Shit Sanitizing Poobah) returned from work I found myself quickly turned into a movie star. Specifically, I morphed into Bob Saget’s character “Walter” on the classic “Dumb and Dumberer” when he opened the bathroom door to the less than obviously melted chocolate smeared all over the room. “There’s SHIT everywhere!” my brain and mouth exclaimed. And it was. Living room. Check. Dining room. Check. Kitchen. Check. Dribbles, and puddles and plops, oh my! All three dogs embarassingly exited stage right while I rolled up my sleeves (euphemistically speaking, I was wearing short sleeves already. It’s ninety degrees outside in August here in Tennessee) and got to work. I papered up what I could, sprayed down the various liquid and semi solid spots of smelly slush with a vinegar/bleach mixture, and then back to the good old mop. I made sure to text the wife to “take the long way home” because I didn’t want her to show up and see, and smell, yon grotestque site. I barely finished before Laura Gail got home. We had to figure out what to do next.
The quantity of “issue” was such that we figured it just HAD to be Jill. Plus, the fact that when Laura Gail arrived home the poor thing was quivering and slightly unbalanced. We figured Abbey had just been falsely accused on account of her guilty looks. It didn’t help that she got twitchy as a crackhead when we questioned her about it under interrogation. It was an honest mistake. Some folks end up in Guantanimo Bay for less suspicious behavior. Jill was the culprit. Vet time.
In times past, if you needed to take your pet to a vet outside of regular office hours, you’d be shit outta luck. (pun, yes. so sue me.) Here in modern times, there are actually pet emergency clinics. We loaded up our baby, 68 plus pounds of sickly infantile canine, and headed off to the ER. They were great at Jackson Pet Emergency Clinic. They got us in quickly, were kind and very professional. They recommended an x-ray to check out her tummy (gut is the clinical term for a dogs stomach, I understand) and we were told she’d need a slight sedative. The vet tech Jill took a liking to immediately. The doctor, who was a kindly, older man, she had an equally immediate dislike towards. He spoke softly and tried to put his hand out for an introductory smell. Jill simply gave him a low, quick, slightly muffled growl. Nope, said Jill. To his credit, the doc didn’t take it personally. Laura Gail and I held her gently on the examination table while he looked her over and send a probe up her rectum for a sample. How’d she know? Instincts, I suppose. Well, the sedation and x-ray would take about an hour, so the tech suggested we go get some dinner, or run errands versus waiting in the waiting room. Since we’d not had dinner, we opted to head for the steak house in the interim. We felt slightly guilty leaving her, especially going to eat while her tummy was so messed up, but we forced ourselves. Upon our return, it was good news. No blockage. The film showed “foreign object” of an “unspecified nature”, meaning it could be a piece of toy, or it could just be undigested food. They gave us anti-diarreah meds and antibiotics and sent us kindly on our way with a promise to follow up if things didn’t get better. Jill was happy to leave.
When we returned home, I set up the large kennel cage in the living room. I put puppy pads under it and padded the interior enough to make Cleopatra herself proud to lay upon it. Jack even strolled inside and dozed for a bit. When I playfully closed the door, he freaked out a bit and made several circles before I released him. We got Jills meds into her without much trouble and she lay on the reclyner and snoozed in a anesthesia-assisted nap before I finally put her into the kennel. Done deal. Now, at least if she has a tummy attack it’ll be confined to that small space. Not so, dear reader, not so at all. Thursday morning began, much as had the rest of the week, with The Cleaning of the Shits. How had I ever managed to get through mornings without it? Even with Jill in the kennel, there were my favorite poop-prizes scattered liberally about the house. We were wrong. It was both of them. Abbey AND Jill were ill. So we dosed Abbey with the same meds they’d given us for the one dog, and gave up on putting anyone in the kennel. Jill still liked it though. I think she thought of it as her own little luxury suite.
I went to work Thursday with the full understanding that I’d be cleaning up more poop when I arrived home that afternoon. It was ok. My babies were getting medicated. They would heal soon, so I was ok with doing that for them. I gripe about them, scold them for getting me out of my chair sometimes, and pick on them in general, but I honestly don’t know what I’d do without those overgrown pups. I’d do anything for them. Even clean up diarreah. That’s one of the rules of love. “Love is….cleaning up my diarreah” doesn’t make a good T-shirt, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less true. When I arrived home, however, I found none. There was a little urine in the kennel, and some “up chuck” that seemed to soley consist of undigested dog food. I dodged a bullet. Thankfully.
I decided to run to Dollar General and pick up some softer texture dog food, just in case our old standby, Old Roy, had somehow been the cause. Jack and Abbey loved it. Jill wouldn’t touch it. When Laura Gail got home, she cooked them rice with chicken broth. They all loved it. They’d all had to wait twenty four hours to eat, and they were starved and thirsty. Jack wasn’t sick, but he fasted with them, sympathetically but not by choice. They’re all doing better today, and Abbey and Jill took their meds like troopers. Jill’s had a couple of up chuck moments tonight, but I’m pretty sure she’s over the worste and am confident she and Abbey will make a full recovery. Thank God.
When your a dog “parent” and your dog is sick, it’s a lot like being a regular parent. You hurt with them, try to take care of them and make their pain go away. You baby talk them and give them meds, take them to the doctor, and worry and pray for them. They’ve worked their way into your heart, and you love them. Laura Gail and I both immediately did what needed to be done for them because that’s what you do when you love someone. I whine about cleaning the same way I used to whine about changing diapers. It’s a nasty job, but it’s gotta get done. Laura Gail got them to take their meds with the skill of a good vet tech and fixed them a home cooked meal when their tummys couldn’t take the regular stuff. Not only that, but the bill incurred at the vet, while not as high as “human” er prices, was fairly steep. Laura Gail use the bulk of a well-deserved bonus to cover it without a second thought. We love our dogs. The sad difference between them and our children is that knowledge on the fringe of our minds that we will, most likely, out live our pets. Every time they fall ill, we wonder if we’ll lose them. Even little things like when we call them to the door to come inside and they don’t come to us immediately (we call Jack “five minute Jack. He always waits five minutes after we shut the door to come a-scratchin). We have a flash of “God, I hope they didn’t run into the street and get hit by a car”. We worry that they’ll get hurt, get sick, do something stupid and be in pain because of it. Oh. Wait. That’s exactly how we feel with our ACTUAL children. No mistake, I’ll not put a human life above my pet’s life. Don’t let that fool you, though. Abbey, Jack and Jill are my babies. They touch my heart every day, and I love em. I don’t ever want to test that “human life versus dog life” theory.
So this was my “pet blog”. If you made it to the end, I thank you for listening/reading. I hope I didn’t bore you. And a small apology is in order to my Laura Gail. I snapped at her tonight after cleaning up the last up chuck from Jill. You didn’t deserve that, Tink. I’m sorry. You’re a wonderful woman and I love you very much. Plus, I hope I don’t wake you up when I slip into bed after writing this, cause I know how much you hate it when I mess up your sleep schedule. Good night, dear reader.
K.S.
Rolling Stones 