on the special diet again, sigh...

Penny had been well for the last couple of weeks, after her hospital visit for gastroenteritis, and I had even reintroduced some aspects of her normal diet.

But... last Friday she was to go to the vet to be sedated so he could look down her throat to check out her strange puffy breathing. He says he can hear 'congestion'.

So, no food after 10 pm. But in the morning she was desperate to go outside to eat grass. I took her on a street walk, but she was searching for grass. What could I do? She obviously felt ill, and there was no point in letting her be sedated if she was unwell. So out to the back yard to act like a sheep and mow the long grass.

My garden always has at least one patch of yummy grass, just in case!

She pooed out the strangest thing. (Apologies if you hate the next two photos, but I always look around on the Net when I'm worried about Penny, so I thought these photos might help someone else to understand their own dog.)

Wow! That sure didn't look good. And then she threw up white froth. (You can see some still hanging from her mouth.)

Off to the vet to explain that we didn't want the sedation and to ask for help. He gave her three injections:
anti-nausea (cerenia);
anti-inflammatory - just a little, I think- (dexadreson);
penicillin (benacillin) -in case there's an infection.

She's been good ever since, except for the worrying coughing/sneezing, which is on the back burner until she recovers from this set-back. But we're back to eating the Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal Low Fat diet. In looking for the link to add here, I notice the advice that this is a diet for management of a condition, not necessarily a long-term feeding product. (I must ask the vet about that.) It says to monitor your dog's weight. Penny has been losing weight over the last six weeks of illness, so I'll keep an eye on that.

But at least, as far as I know, it's a diet that gives her everything she needs in terms of nutrition. We're also finishing off the boiled rice and boiled chicken that I cooked up.

orange dog vomit

There are a few photos of dog vomit in this blog, so don't read on if you think it will upset you. However, I'm posting it because when Penny threw up in the park yesterday, we couldn't find good information on the internet, and I hope this post will be helpful to others.

It seemed like a good idea to have a walk before breakfast yesterday, so when we set out, Penny had an empty stomach. That may have something to do with what happened.

As we walked, I took a photo of the lovely, typical wattle. All three of us were happy. In retrospect, examining this photo, I'm wondering what Penny was doing. Eating something? Grazing on grass?

Anyway, a few minutes later, she threw up a handful of grass in yellow froth, as she occasionally does. It was yellow, which is not really clear in the following photo.

We weren't too concerned, because it was likely Penny was just using the grass to settle a bit of a tummy upset.

But a few paces further on, she threw up orange froth, with a small blob of blood in it.

She seemed fine, but we slowed  down the pace of the walk and made our way back to the car.

Penny was her usual self as far as we could see, during the rest of the day, but we fed her only tiny meals of boiled rice and chicken - we gave her a little handful about four times over the course of the day.

This morning, however, we began to think we should get her checked out at the vet. So off we went.
He believes Penny might have ruptured a little blood vessel in her stomach when she vomited the first time and that's why she threw up the orange froth.

We're continuing the rice and chicken diet, but today we have introduced some of her normal treats (for instance, when I was bathing her this afternoon).

She seems fine. Time will tell, of course. It's reassuring to have visited  our vet, though.

And when I look at what Penny was doing while we were admiring the beautiful yellow wattle, I think she was already eating grass.