sick again

Yesterday Dash was sick... again.  He had really watery, bloody diarrhea and was vomiting his dinner up.  Then once all the dinner was gone, he was still dry heaving.  Of course we were very concerned, so Papa Dash took today off to take our mini Aussie puppy to the vet at Balboa Pet Hospital.

It turns out that for one, we should not have taken Dash on our Valentine's Day outing.  The vet said due to his previous injury we should have given him more time to heal rather than go crazy right after the pain meds were gone.  We intend to honor this suggestion as much as possible, but it's really getting difficult when our puppy is becoming a psychotic little would-up top in the apartment!

The vet also gave us various forms of medication for Dash's diarrhea and we purchased cans of a special bland dog food.  These were all supposed to help calm his stomach and get his digestive system back on track.  Thankfully, so far they are working.

My main concern is that Dash isn't even a year old yet and he's had several illnesses, more than one of which has been mysterious and unsolvable.  And if taking care of a dog is this troublesome and stressful, how are we ever going to raise a baby successfully???

mystery ailment

A few days ago we noticed Dash was acting more mellow than usual.  He didn't tear up his pee pad while we were at work or toss around the couch throw pillows.  Then the next day we noticed he would just lie around and not get up to follow us around the house.  He had no interest in his toys and refused to jump on or off of the furniture.  Dash also had a very hard time standing up.  Although this mellow version of our mini Aussie puppy was a nice change from the typical active version, it was also cause for major concern.

 

Then today was a major scare.  I was the first to come home, and when I opened the door he didn't come to greet me or even move from his laying position.  Upon closer inspection he was trembling and tense.  When I coaxed him to stand he struggled but was unable to, then proceeded to urinate on himself.  It was an awful sight.

I called our vet for an emergency appointment and rushed right over.  Dash looked agitated, uncomfortable, and was panting.  After Dr. Henriksen at Balboa Pet Hospital examined him she was unable to find an obvious ailment.  The only clue we had was that Dash seemed to react slightly when she touched his mid spine.  In the end she prescribed him with pain medications and took blood and urine samples for testing.  The only thing that seemed to help Dash was a visit with Dr. Henriksen's two regular sized Australian Shepherds.

Since we got home he's just been sleeping it off and at least he's not quivering any more.  Hopefully the tests will tell us something more tomorrow, because we have no idea what could have caused this...