*Note: I've been writing this in installments over the last two weeks, which is why the tense keeps switching*
Meet Gus.
Gus is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met, if not a little dopey. He drools when he's hungry, he'll eat absolutely anything, and he sheds like the dickens. Gus was born in Bethel 5 and a half years ago, and has lived there his entire life except for a 6 month "vacation" to Northern California in 2007.
Then, approximately 3 weeks ago, Gus took a road trip across the country on a throne in a minivan, and ended up in a town called Boone, North Carolina. And thus this poor poor dog's troubles began...
Almost immediately after getting to Boone, Gus began to scratch...and snap...and bite. Constantly. This happened just as Chris and I purchased a couch and a comfy chair for our new living room. Gus wanted on the couch. Gus wanted on the chair. Gus liked to rub up against everything, and, in case you haven't guessed, Gus had gotten fleas.
Fleas. Gross. All over my new couch. And my new chair. And my new house. Ugh.
As soon as Chris found out, he put flea medicine on Gus. We washed everything he had touched. We went to bed. We woke up. Gus still had fleas. (*Note: though it was very dramatic in my mind about the couch and chair and fleas, neither Chris nor I ever saw a single flea on anything other than the dog.)
At this point, Chris, knowing how bad I would freak out if our new house was infested with fleas went out to buy flea shampoo, and tried that. No dice.
It was only with the second application of the flea shampoo and the subsequent application of topical preventative medicine that Gus seemed to be rid of the little pests. Of course, we didn't know that they were completely gone, and since he still was scratching where the fleas had bitten him, we were all a little antsy for a week or so.
It was Labor Day morning - a three day weekend, no school for Chris. The three of us had gone for a hike the day before, and had lots of fun tromping around the Blue Ridge Parkway for a few hours. Anyway - Chris takes Gus out in the morning, and is throwing a stick for Gus to catch. One throw, the stick bounces the wrong way, and it catches Gus in the mouth. He gives a moan and retreats to the house. Chris is concerned, but Gus gobbles up his food as usual, drinks some water, all seems to be normal.
Chris leaves for a study sesh on campus, and I’m hanging out with Gus at home. I’m cutting a beautiful peach, and there’s a bum part on the peach that I cut off and call Gus over to take care of it. (It sometimes comes in handy having a garbage disposal dog.) Gus comes over, tail wagging, sniffs the peach and …doesn’t eat it. Wait, what? Gus not interested in food?? I try again. Nope. He sniffed and walked away. Weird.
I cut another slice of peach. Still not interested. Now I start to get scared. Gus eats everything. EVERYTHING. I try to give him a slice of cheese. He takes it, but very hesitantly, and then walks away with his head down. Something. Is. Up. Something not good.
Throughout the day, Gus seems to get more and more mopey, and more and more drooley. Like, he’s not moving his mouth to catch it and just drool everywhere.
That night, we looked up the number to an emergency pet hospital here in town, and took him there. The vet said that he saw a two-inch laceration under his tongue with little bits of stick and other stuff in it. He wanted to clean it out and stitch it up just to make sure that it heals correctly. We brought him home after a few hours, groggy but ok with a pain medication and an antibiotic.
Just like Gus usually is, a few days later, he was back to picking up sticks when we took him out to pee and begging for us to play with him. Him, with a two inch cut from a blunt stick in his mouth.
On Thursday night/Friday morning, Gus got into the trash. Not unusual. Chris woke up before me, and cleaned it up. We were back to normal in the Whalen/Pike household.
Friday night, we got home and I let Gus out. He peed normally, and then pooped a huge poop that consisted of all of his dinner in whole chunks and little globby things that looked like peeled grapes. His poop was so strange that I had Chris come and look at it. Gus went inside then and vomited a few times, puking up all his food. We figure he had just gotten sick from something in the trash that disagreed with him. Saturday, he vomited a bunch of times, and would only eat little pieces of bread soaked in water. Sunday he didn’t seem to be doing any better, so first thing on Monday we took him to the vet again.
They drew some blood, ran some tests, and told us the bad news. The toxin levels in his blood that his kidneys should be filtering out were extremely high. He needed to be admitted, and told us that they thought that with three or four days in the hospital hooked up to an IV, the fluids that he got would flush his system, and his kidneys would start working correctly again. So we admitted him.
The doctors and vet techs at the hospital were completely awesome. It’s a 24/7 facility, so we could visit or call at any time, and there’s always a vet there.
Over the next few days, Gus’ levels stayed roughly the same. Up a few tenths of a point here, then down a few, but mostly they just stayed. Gus got pretty depressed, so I started giving him a naturopathic medicine a few times a day. That helped his mood, but it was clear that he wasn’t getting any better. We talked to the vet Saturday, and she told us that everything they were doing at the hospital were things that we could be doing at home. They would set us up with oral medications and IV bags that we could inject under his skin to keep him hydrated. It seemed like the best way to go – Gus wanted to be home and it was not financially feasible to keep him in there much longer.
On Sunday morning, we brought Gus home. We led him over to his nice, plush, new dog bed, and he laid right down in it. We made a schedule for his medications and subcutaneous fluids, and let him rest.
