On Saturday, Teddy, our year old lab mix, was playing like normal, enjoying the nice weather.
Playing in the front yard on a beautiful Spring day.
When we woke up Sunday morning, Ruby, our chubby 3 year old puggle, was begging for food as usual. Teddy, however, was not really interested in eating his dog food. Later, my husband offered Teddy some of what he was eating and he was not at all interested. This was our first sign that something was not quite right. Dogs sometimes don't want to eat dog food, but they ALWAYS want to eat people food, unless they're sick.
We went to Target (dude, I go there at least twice a week) and when we came home, checked the backyard for evidence. There were two pairs of my underwear that had obviously been regurgitated, and one pair was found whole in his... um.... excrement. While this is completely disgusting, it is not new to us. He has eaten and passed whole socks and underwear before. We find this in his poo quite often. Lately, however, I had been extra careful to keep him out of places he shouldn't be. Obviously not careful enough...
After that, he puked. Again, this is not unusual behavior for him. He'll puke once in a while and be fine, eating and playing normally. It was the projectile liquid bloody diarrhea (TMI?) that told me this was different than usual. After seeing him do that twice, I was convinced he needed to go to the vet. This was Sunday. Vets that are open on Sundays are emergency hospitals and charge big $$$, which is why we had waited so long to take him in. We wanted to be sure it was serious before forking over the big bucks to fix him.
We took him in, Teddy showed the doctor his new cool trick (they didn't think it was so cool), they took X-rays which showed nothing, then handed us a big fat estimate. We paid our deposit and left him for the night.
Ruby and I were sad that our family was incomplete for a night.
The doctor called a few hours later to let us know he had passed a sock and that he should be fine to go home in the morning. My husband took the day off to bring him home and give him some extra TLC, and now he is just about back to normal!
Sporting a little bandage from the IV and a wagging tail.
Some people don't understand what it's like to think of an animal as part of your family. I never did, until we got our first dog together. Ruby and Teddy are our babies and we would do anything for them. Unfortunately, vets do know this and that is why they get away with charging so much for an X-ray and some IV fluids. I was mad at the office and felt like they were taking advantage of us when I saw the first estimate, but I realize that they're running a business and it is based on people feeling emotional and wanting the best for the furry members of their family.
Have you had to shell out big bucks for one of your furry friends?
