Do it smell good? When you want to spark interest, ask Grammy to have a go…Kenai 2 yrs

Last weekend was a replay of the weekend before–no eating, gastritis, mucousy stools, vomiting by Sunday night. Here we go again. Yet another trip to the vet Monday, my cool nowhere in sight. 2 years of this has officially gotten entirely too long. I had to make my urgency about ending this unending sickness very very plain (you can imagine).

Since Kenai will usually start to eat a little bit by late afternoon, I’ve kept the boy on a roll since Monday afternoon: small feedings every 4-6 hours. That meant a 3 am feeding Tuesday morning (no bottle for this baby, just red meat).

Low and behold, he ate!! Once I really woke him up with the sweeper anyway.

And some good news about BB–the latest cytology that had us worried was cross contaminated by bacillus, the good tummy bacteria. So Bump-ya Boy had a date Wednesday with the doggie day care folks for an eval.  

 You can see his body condition is much improved lately, thank goodness. Don’t know what changed, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

It’s nice to only be worried sick by one dog’s problems at a time, instead of two. Kenai’s difficulties has really thrown me off into the deep end the past couple of weeks. But BB’s okay at the moment.

I’ve found myself actually binge eating, is how distressed I’ve been. So my own body condition has “improved” by a few pounds. Dummy.

BB’s been eating well, his ribs don’t poke out, and he’s not nearly as bony. All he’s giving us trouble with is surges of anxious/dominance attempts and generalized not wanting to mind. Feels too good for a change?

I love getting comments, and especially like being able to answer questions people ask, but sometimes ya get an oddball. I had a comment on the puppy basics page that went like this: “how do I apply this to my individual existence?”

It came from a likely spam fiend, but I had to chuckle: it’s pottytraining, not existentialist philosphy…

Yesterday was a good ol playtime in the mud for the Brothers Grin. They’d been storing it up for a few days, waiting for the weather to break a bit. It didn’t, so we all bit the bullet and got muddy. The inevitable but still awful soapy toes events followed.

Oh did I get donkey ears for that effort! There’s no getting the boy toes totally clean and dry–if not muddy, then damp with muddy water from the deck. Paw prints on the kitchen mats. Better a few prints as they dry than enough mud on the carpet to repot a houseplant.

Once clean and dry though, the boys settled in for a wee snack and a nap. Kenai got a little car ride when he woke up. He may have thought it was just another ordinary car ride at first, but when he realized the store bag held a pair of new balls, he couldn’t wait to get home! Bounce, swat, bang, pounce, whine-you-get-it-for-me was how the afternoon went.

***

What is it about us: just when things are improving, the other shoe falls? Well, Kenai had himself a terrible Thursday, of vomiting et all. So Friday was worse: a 4 hour drive to KC, 6 hours of intrusive vet stuff, and 4 hours on the road home.

Kenai had endoscopic biopsies, ultra sounds, a spinal tap, xrays from the neck down, and 3 of 4 legs had joint fluid aspirated. All his bloodwork was normal to the internist’s bewilderment: welcome to Dr Susan’s world!! Clinical signs, normal bloodwork. Fun! (not)

My worries about his diet causing bone problems were for naught, as the orthopedist said he had great joints and normal bones. That was a marvelous relief to me, being so nervous about the calcium/phosphorus content of the raw diet.

They were very willing to keep his neck supported while sedated too. No flopping head when carried or hanging off the table. That’s a great way to cause spinal impingements or even Wobbler’s in a Great Dane.

If my baby love suddenly had spinal damage, I think I would just sit down and cry. That’d be just way way too much to keep a stiff upper lip about, ya know?

You can see two “carpet patches” where he was shaved in this pic. He’s got another big one on the other side, and three more on the legs. He’s quite the Johnny come home from the wars fellow now.

My heart went out to him, having to go through this, but it was a one time deal at least. Throw in the kitchen sink now, ’cause I don’t want to prolong things is what I told the internist. Big Brown felt awful for it too. Hide my nose and hang my head awful. His usual body pain was seriously ramped up, so when we got home we began the process of getting pain meds in him.

He needed two other pills first, cimitidine and carafate, with an hour between all three. He woke me up twice during the night. Some soft conversation and extra gentle baby massage added to the pain medicine helped him go off to sleep. Poor baby.

I cleaned his diarrhea bottom up for him, and wiped him down with witch hazel, and put neosporin on the few tiny cuts from the shave. Poor baby. Kenai even got his belly cleaned, ever so gently, and a bit of baby powder. Nothing like baby powder to make ya feel better, huh? Clean and dry and comfie made it better.

BB, bless his boy heart, found himself boarded from Thursday night on, and I tried my darndest to get to the doggie day care by 8 pm. But Kenai was slow to throw off the anesthesia, and at 8 pm I had just reached the outskirts of Joplin, MO. We were 1 hour too behind to pick him up Friday night.

So I’m heading in to get him this morning. I can’t get Mom out of bed. (Not like she’s any more tired than moi, who has Chronic Fatigue). Once BB and his allergy itch get home to see his battle scarred big bro, (oh the happy reunion that will be), the Brother’s Grin will be known as “Scratch ‘n’ Patch” for awhile.

It was a horrendous 17 hour day for me and Mom, but I believe “Patch” got the worst of it. The drive itself was easy, until we got to KC. Holy crap–all the time I lived in Fort Worth I had never ever seen traffic that bad. KC was hell on earth, and naturally, we hit at rush hour coming and going.

But everyone will be home today, our little four pack will be back together again. There’ll be lots of sleeping it off, too. Snooze, turn, snore, get up to eat, go back to bed…I might stay up an hour or so to read, but don’t count on it. Once the four pack is in the same room, I’m good for nothing!

Let’s hope for a quiet weekend, and someting useful to come out of Kenai’s bad bad day.