Tummy Recovery

At the vet on Friday morning, they injected a ton of subcutaneous fluids for dehydration. So he came home with a huge 'ump on one shoulder and a few other random big squishy lumps. He was very happy to see me, even more so than usual. He's not typically a snuggly dog, but he just about threw himself into my arms and onto my lap and wrapped himself around me as much as he could and just clung there while I was waiting for the vet to come out and talk to me.

Now he's taking:

• metronizadole, an antibiotic for nonspecific possible bug in the digestive system, common for unknown/persistent diarrhea
  
• Metoclopramide, which is an antinausea, stomach-coating thingiebobber
  
• pepcid-AC, which is--well, pepcid-AC
  

Vet ordered no food last night. I gave him about a tablespoon of food in which to embed several pieces of pills--and about 20 minutes later he threw it all back up. Sigh.

So then I learned how to do what I've never had to do before, which is to pry the dog's mouth open and reach back inside and drop the pill behind the "sort of rise/lump in the back of the tongue" down towards his throat. He hated it, but as the vet tech said, "He just has to get over it." It worked kind of OK; I might not have still been dropping them down quite far enough, but we did get the pills down him.

He was a *real* grouch last night. Probably not feeling really well, plus who know what the fluids under his skin made him feel like, plus I'd left him at the vet's all day, plus he thought he was hungry and everyone was getting something to eat except him. He was showing his teeth & landing on Jake & Tika at the drop of a hat all evening. AND he continued being amazingly clingy, continuing to just push his way right up onto me and my lap and putting his arms around my neck and just adhering to my lap like velcro. Poor baby.

This morning his appetite was back full force and so was his more typical mellow mood. The energy level is still not up to par, but better than it was yesterday morning. He had rice, cottage cheese, & chicken for breakfast and kept it all down, although still a little background gagging occurred. He'll be eating like that for the next few days. Poor baby. (Yeah, right.)

We went up to Power Paws this morning for some unstructured agility practice. Rem good-naturedly went over a couple of jumps and a dogwalk but really had no interest in running or doing agility, although he did recognize Karey on the far side of the field and went into a full run to go see her. Mostly he spent the time looking through the fence at a ewe and her lamb. Ewe even came right over to the fence after a while and they were nose to nose for a couple of minutes, which thrilled the big dog boy no end, little barks just exploding from him.

With Jake and Tika, I ran some more complicated courses. Tika did great! Feels like she's come so far in just the last month or so, from still being a beginning dog, to being a good strong competitor. She's still not clear on "teeter" command or on what one looks like--still flew off the first couple, which I dont think she liked much, actually (unlike certain Australian Cattle Dogs I can name). And her reaction to being uncertain about what she's supposed to do (undoubtedly dumb things I'm doing) is to sort of put her ears back and veer off in some other direction pretending to be interested in something else. She has been coming back when I call her, tryig to sound cheerful, and I give her goodies & some playing when she comes back. But otherwise she's still very focused and very fast and a real blast.

And Jake is just a really good experienced boy. He's doing better and better on his contacts--I hope--last trial he got almost all of them. It's about time, too--

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