My Sick Puppy

My puppy started having a bellyache on Tuesday, throwing up and having diarrhea. He was acting listless and tired, not himself at all. Sleeping ALL night long in his crate, instead of waking me up to potty at regular intervals. We were planning to have him evaluated on Saturday and I was having a terrible time trying to decide if that was really the best thing to do. He wasn't really acting too sick. He was still going outside with the girls in the morning, running and playing hard with them. Then he would sleep the rest of the day, like the other dogs. He was preferring to stay outside, even though it was so hot out. But he was off his food, and not interested at all in the yummy snacks we use for his clicker training lessons. He was also keeping his ears down most of the time, and just didn't seem himself. We had puppy socialization class on Thursday night, but on the way home, my dh told me LJ wasn't feeling too good, that he was acting lethargic. I panicked a bit, called information and got the number for a veterinarian in the town where I live. I made an appointment for the next day. The lady who made the appointment said that he probably has Parvo.

I have never heard anything but bad about Parvo. About dogs that had Parvo as puppies and whose intestines never were the same all their lives. How debilitating it is and how they get so deathly sick and die. So naturally I was very upset and crying, worried about LJ. I called a friend who had dealt with Parvo before and she said since he was able to eat, drink and keep it down and was still playing, he almost certainly did not have Parvo.

We kept our appointment anyway, and in the vet's office waiting to see the vet, LJ was restless and anxious. I finally took a postcard, crumpled it up and made a little ball for him to play fetch with. He was pouncing on it, bringing it back to me and running after it when I'd throw it. Totally bored. So the vet came in and started asking a lot of questions. Finally she said even though he was acting like he felt so good, she wanted to rule out Parvo. The test would take ten minutes.

20 minutes later... she came back with the test triumphantly exclaiming that it was Parvo. She seemed fairly pleased with the proof in her hands. Anyway... I was very upset and crying again.

She said the prognosis was very good, but still guarded. The vet tech came in and told us that she had high hopes that he would make it, because usually the dogs that come in are so sick that they "stink like Parvo" they are listless and in terrible pain. They did a test on LJ's blood, to find out what the white blood count was. That came back very good. He was dehydrated, so they gave him a bottle of IV fluids under the skin. The vet called it a "gel pack". It was a HUGE lump on his back. It's a good thing he has lots of skin!

I had to call the dog training lady to let her know it was Parvo. The vet admonished us for even taking LJ off the property at such a young age with "high Parvo" season going on. She said he should not leave this property until he was at least 16 weeks of age. And here I have been stressing out and trying to go on these "scavenger hunts" that the dog training lady said we needed to go on. Find 10 things to do in the next week, she would say. One week I didn't follow through and she said, "So you say, 'I'll do better next week.'" So there I was trying to find places to take LJ, and exposing him unnecessarily to PARVO. DUH. I asked the vet, "Well, how am I supposed to socialize him?" She said, "At home, with your own dogs."

He is feeling much better. So much that he's becoming quite a handful to care for. Prior to contracting Parvo, we would just let him out the door when he had to go potty. Now we have to take him out on the leash. Yesterday evening, I swear he had to go out every fifteen minutes, and he peed every single time! This morning he woke me at 1:30am (haven't been back to sleep since, going to be a fun morning) and he had to pee 6 times.

We are having to give him antibiotics twice daily, in pill form, for five days. The vet said to buy human baby food meat for him. We bought four jars. He scarfed down one jar at the vet's office. The vet seemed surprised at how well he was doing, and was glad he had eaten already.

We are making him baby food meat by just blending the meat up in the food processor. The things we end up doing for these baby animals, that we never did for our own children! We never fed baby food to our sons. We just started them on table food when they started showing an interest in food.

A friend of mine cautioned me about having LJ evaluated... and now that he's come down with this very mild case of Parvo, I find myself feeling it was Divine Intervention. The things I was concerned about initially, I have found are almost certainly "puppy" issues.

At any rate, we can't take him anyplace for at least one month as the vet says he will be "shedding Parvo" for at least 30 days.

Until next time.