I don't want another week like the one we just had. It started last Monday evening when our basement flooded. Okay, it didn't flood completely, just enough to make a mess and really piss me off. Evidently the sump pump quit working. So my husband had to rush out and get a new one and ask the neighbor to help him install it. A working sump pump makes me happy. No water in the basement makes me extremely happy.
Then Wednesday our puppy (dog?) Max wasn't himself. He wasn't eating much and running around like usual and definitely not pooping like usual. Thursday morning he still wouldn't eat or drink, and he hadn't pooped in 24 hours. He was acting weird like he couldn't get comfortable. Then he threw up. I called my husband and the vet told us to bring Max in right away. They were concerned that he may have a blockage so they took x-rays. You do not want to know how much it costs to have a dog x-rayed!! I was concerned that it may have been his back that was hurt because he would sit with his legs off to the side and he kept stretching out and laying flat on his back. The doctor warned my husband that if it WAS his back we would have to take him to the real hospital and have an MRI done. It is unspeakable how much money that would cost!! So the vet did find 3 places that could have been potential blockages in Max's system. They gave him a shot for pain and a shot for the nausea and sent him home. My husband brought Max home so we, which means I, could keep an eye on his condition. Max immediately threw up again. I called the vet and they told me to bring him back in. They put an I.V. in and kept him the rest of the day.
My husband picked Max up at 5:30 and he still hadn't pooped and still couldn't sit down or sit still at all. It was terrible. The vet called us around 8 pm to check on Max. The vet told us he and the other 2 doctors had stayed late to discuss Max, and they decided to take another x-ray in the morning to see if the 3 potential blockages had moved. If not, they were going to take some action. They weren't sure what would be the best for Max. So we had to wait until morning.
Max finally fell asleep at around 10 pm laying on his stomach with his feet stretched out behind him and his head hanging down off the side of the chaise. I left him downstairs with my husband who was sleeping on the couch. Around midnight I heard Max jump off the chaise so I ran downstairs to see if he was okay. I found him in the kitchen chowing down his bowl of food. Then he had a long drink of water and ran into the living room. I woke up my husband to take Max outside. And Max finally pooped!!! I know, it's poop, it's disgusting, but it really made us happy.
Max went back to sleep until morning and then pooped again. Yay!! So we called the vet and told them he was 'moving' again, eating and drinking and not throwing up, and they were relieved also. We think the 'blockage' was caused by the stuffing from his hedgehog toy and/or a feather he may or may not have ingested. Let me tell you, this dog eats everything (except medicine). Outside it's rocks, grass, sticks, mulch, bird poop, dead worms, bugs, and his favorite is bunny poop. I've tried explaining to Max that the little bunny poops are NOT treats, but he just doesn't listen. The thing is, we have him on a leash when we take him outside, so it's easy to pull him away from all of these random things he wants to eat. But inside, we have a terrible time stopping him when he gets something in his mouth. We put up a gate to keep him from going upstairs, and we keep everything off the floor and put away because our cat likes to knock stuff off the counter top. We were worried that the blockages could have been the piece of plastic from a pair of headphones that he started to eat, or from when my son was doing homework and left the laptop sitting open and Max ate one of the keys. Seriously. He ate one of the arrow keys.
Max has not learned his lesson though. Since his incident he has tried to eat mulch, bird poop, grass, leaves, a used dryer sheet, a kleenex, carpet, newspaper, and the stuffing out of his latest victimized toy (which is now in the trash). I just love trying to catch him (we have to move the furniture to trap him) and pry his mouth open to get out whatever he is trying to eat. So much fun. Not.
To top that off, we had a 'surprise' snow event on Monday. It was heavy and wet and slippery and above freezing yet the snow kept coming ALL DAY. The school buses were already out picking up kids when they decided to cancel school. My daughter was already at the bus stop for 10 minutes (we thought the bus was just late) before another parent came out and called her child home and told the others that school was cancelled. A snow day. I get nothing done on snow days. I know it was slippery out and there were a ton of accidents, but we were literally the ONLY school anywhere near us that cancelled. We ended up getting over 5 inches of heavy wet snow by 4 pm Monday. And do you know that by 7 pm Tuesday it was ALL melted. The snow is gone and the yard is a wet sopping mess.
