Penny's bad day

Poor Penny. After her lovely day on Thursday cornering a rat and eating her bone, yesterday she snaffled a piece of plastic from under some meat and had to go to the vet so they could induce her to vomit it up. She's okay now, but was pretty unhappy when she came home.

We do have some washing soda crystals on hand to provoke vomiting in a case of poisoning, but on reading this veterinary advice, I'm sure glad our own vet was open and could do it for us.

For one thing, our vet had to administer a second medication to stop her continuing to vomit, and that would have been impossible for us to do at home.

The above link has some useful advice. For one thing, it's necessary in a case of poisoning to assess whether you might do more harm than good to induce vomiting if the poisonous substance is corrosive.

Secondly, there's some good advice about using dishwashing liquid to wash off a substance on her skin. We had to do that some years ago when she had a bad reaction to Advantix, a topical tick medication.

Penny's sore elbow

Curator called by today to ask how Penny's been going since she caught her paw in her collar recently.

It's kind of complicated...

She does have a very sore elbow, and we're wondering whether it's a long-term injury from that incident. On the other hand, last weekend she visited a house in the country where she climbed up some steep slippery stairs, because she insisted on sleeping upstairs with her humans.

So, not liking seeing her in discomfort, we arranged to visit the vet on Wednesday. (She's been so sore she won't put her front foot on the ground at all. Very worrying.)

And then, the night before the vet appointment, she threw up - twice. First time sort of okay, and she was still hungry, so we thought it was normal. (I'm sure I don't have to tell you how we knew she was hungry... But we managed to hurry her away before she ate the thrown-up meal once again.)

The second time, the 'product' looked really horrible. Human Number Two even reckoned it looked like dirt. I said, 'No, it can't be. Why would she be eating dirt?' We looked around the garden to check whether she'd dug up that nice old brisket bone she had buried a few days ago, and thought maybe that was it, but no bone fragments in the pile of you-know-what.

Mysterious.

When I went to the vet, he agreed that vomiting can produce something that might look like dirt. But since she seemed fine as far as her digestion goes, we decided to just concentrate on getting the sore elbow fixed up. (Back to the vet tomorrow to see whether the anti-inflammatories are doing the job.)

I'm a keen gardener. But I  wouldn't be so silly as to lay down a fine bed of delicious blood-and-bone and cover it with a delightful layer of highly enticing half-rotted compost, would I? Well, maybe, but I'd make super sure to do it in an inaccessible garden bed with a metre-high brick wall around it.

The latest theory about the sore elbow is that Someone has been digging in that bed. There are paw prints. Holes have appeared in the smooth layer of compost. Who could it be? If that Someone had managed to leap into the bed via a nearby upturned concrete pot, she might conceivably have injured her elbow as she leaped out.

Who knows?

But just in case, the garden bed now has a strategically placed garbage bin blocking access and it has a strong cover of wire mesh.

Now it just remains to get Penny well and active again. No walks allowed. No going down the back steps to the yard. Tedious trips down the sideway to reach the backyard without using the stairs.

It's a dog's life, that's for sure.

Penny gives us a big, big scare

Penny's been in hospital. And we were super worried. (She's home now and resting, having eaten small meals of boiled chicken and rice.) Last Thursday she vomited her breakfast, ate it again - and vomited it again.

Later on that first day, at dinner time, the same thing happened, but this time the 'second helping' stayed down. However, she looked so woebegone that we took her to the vet hospital. It was a public holiday the following day, and we knew it would be at least 36 hours before we could take her to our own vet.

So at midnight she was admitted.

It was scary. Words like 'bowel obstruction' were mooted.

The next day, she seemed a bit better, so we took her home. But she sort of 'faded' throughout the day, lying flat as a carpet, and we decided to go back. She was re-admitted.

The hospital was wonderful. All sorts of tests and examinations were done, and we had a phone consultation with each vet attending to Penny. (Lots of phone calls at midnight and five a.m sure take the energy out of a worried owner.)

Hoping for the less frightening diagnosis, I concentrated my internet info-search on gastro-enteritis. Bowel blockage was just too alarming to consider. And the other possibilities that were suggested I don't even have the courage to write.

What I gathered, from the plentiful info from the hospital, and from sites on the internet, is that gastro is diagnosed by ruling out all other possibilities.

Greenbriar Animal Hospital's advice reassured us that we hadn't overreacted by going to emergency:

How is your dog acting? If he's running around [after vomiting] and acting just like he always does, good. You have more time to address the problem. But if your dog is acting ill, is lethargic, doesn't want to do the things he usually jumps at (like a walk), or is spending lots of time just lying around or sleeping, you need to get him to the vet now. Even if this means an emergency visit.

And...

a dog who has vomited 3-5 times in one day has a lot more urgency to the situation and should be seen now.

The Greenbriar Hospital has good advice about how to handle a less urgent case at home.

Bedfordview Vet Hospital compares a canine case of gastroenteritis with cholera in humans, as to its level of severity.

An article on Hub Pages explains the illness and makes the point that if gastroenteritis is caught early, it can be resolved. It gives a chilling explanation of why we should act on this condition quickly:

While the symptoms of this condition may be pretty worrisome for the owner, when caught early, treatment is much easier and effective. Cases left going on for too long may cause complications and also potentially death. The reason behind this is that untreated gastroenteritis will cause major dehydration. With major dehydration the red blood cell count will increase consistently causing the blood to concentrate and thus, become thicker. 

An article at VCA Animal Hospitals is great and lays out clearly the things we needed to tell the vets, the treatments that could be expected, and some possible causes. The stand-out reassuring quote for me was:

Most cases of acute gastroenteritis improve rapidly after re-hydration. If the vomiting and diarrhea do not improve significantly within forty-eight hours of treatment, the diagnosis should be re-evaluated.

I was very impressed at the way the emergency hospital considered all possibilities throughout Penny's stay.


Pet Health Network has a good overview.

a dog eats grass after vomiting

Penny was in luck today - she had three walks. The last one was an impromptu stroll down the overgrown laneway running between two local streets. I've asked the council if they would refrain from spraying poisons there and, wonderfully, they don't. They mow it four times a year. We wouldn't be happy to walk there in snake season, but this early in a still-cool spring, it feels safe.

I was struck by the beauty of dandelion seedheads and crouched to take some photos while Penny wandered further along the lane. Silly me. Penny never goes far away unless there's food involved. Well, she would call it food. We're more inclined to refer to her favorite snacks as disgusting rubbish.

So, I'm busy enjoying the beauty of nature:

Then I notice Penny, also, is busy enjoying something.

Oh, yes. Some delicious mouldy bread.

I race down, we have a brief tug of war, after which Penny graciously (not!) surrenders the rest of the bread and we move on.

Of course, Penny throws up. Thank goodness for that. The bread was disgusting.

Why do our neighbours think it's a good idea to toss discarded bread into the lane?

And then Penny starts eating grass. Definitely after she'd thrown up.

I've previously seen her eat grass before throwing up, but this is the first time I can definitely say it was post-vomiting and that she didn't subsequently throw up again.

She seems okay now (about five hours later) after a small meal, mainly cooked rice. Here's hoping her own system has dealt with the revolting snack.

if your dog is vomiting

PetPlace has an article on what to do if your dog is vomiting. I thought it sounded quite helpful.

regurgitation and vomiting in dogs

Honey the Great Dane has been vomiting also, and Hsin-Yi, her human, has written all about it, including some interesting links.

Of course, Hsin-Yi worried that Honey might be suffering bloat, that condition that terrifies us humans, but thankfully, Honey seems well now.

I'm still thinking about the meaning of dog vomiting, because this morning - Monday - Penny vomited up the grass that she ate Friday evening. It seems a long time to have been inside her.

Here are the links that Hsin-Yi included. I've had a look at them and I think they are helpful.

Wellvet.com

and

Helium.

At Natural Dog Health Remedies I read

If your dog often vomits in the morning or before eating and the expelled substance is a clear yellow or brownish fluid, it may mean that she has an upset stomach caused by excessive stomach acids. Feeding your dog more frequent meals in smaller portions may solve the problem.

I thought an article at peteducation.com had very comprehensive information.

Vetbase.co.uk has an extremely comprehensive article, also. I was interested to read

When an animal vomits the gastric contents and perhaps some contents of the first part of the small intestine are brought up and ejected forcefully through the mouth.

I hadn't realised that vomiting could bring up material from so far down the digestive tract.

lumps, bowels and doggy illnesses

Penny's been keeping us on our toes lately. She had her annual vaccinations last week, one of which which should protect her from distemper, infectious hepatitus and parvovirus; the other from bordetella brontiseptica and canine parainfluenza.

Well, I think that's what they were - the teensy tiny stickers on her health record are hard to read, even with my glasses on!

That evening she threw up five times. I rang the local animal hospital and the vet said to keep an eye on her and gave me the phone number of a local all-night clinic. However, she slept through the night okay.

We didn't, though.

In the morning my own vet examined her and he thought she was more likely to have vomited because she had a bowel inflammation. (She had been having jelly-like material in her poos on and off over the last few weeks.)

He put her on antibiotics for a week, which are nearly finished now.

It's hard to know what to do for the best for our beloved animals. There are lots of internet sites with scary stories of pets' reactions to vaccinations, and I did check out lots of such sites when I posted last year about the concern that we over-vaccinate in Australia.

I thought Dog Owners' Guide seemed to have a reasonable overview of the question. Basically they referred to vomiting as a severe reaction, but said we should still have the vaccinations with the proviso that the dog might need to take antihistamines or the leptospirosis part could be omitted.

They discuss (but not in detail) recent research that suggests we should vaccinate less frequently.

As I write this, Penny is frantically licking her paws. She tends to have a problem with her paws, so it's not a new issue, but I feel sure she's doing it more these last couple of days. So I'm interested in a site that suggests paw licking can be a reaction to vaccinations.

And to top off our worries, when I got home from the vet after the vaccination, I noticed Penny had another lump - this time on the top of her head. It's not long since she had one removed from her chest.

The vet said it would be safer to remove it, but not to worry about rushing into it. I'm fairly sure it is getting smaller every day. At first it was as big as a pea, but I think it's only pin-head size now. Here's hoping!