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| Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. |
All paths eventually converge upon the threshold, where the shadows are no longer a lie, and grief is gone.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
We're fighting to keep Onyx. With all of yours sick, I didn't bother to mention that both of our dogs had been sick over the last couple of weeks. It started with Onyx, about three weeks ago, and I think she's had diarrhea ever since, although as far as I can see, it's never been pure blood, like Bunny's was when I had to run her out to the emergency vet in the middle of the night last week. Bunny seemed worse, but has rebounded and is back to normal. Onyx has gotten ever more picky about eating, and would only eat boiled chicken the last week or so, and this morning wouldn't even eat that. I think she's just totally exhausted from three weeks of diarrhea, no matter what the vet has tried. We've got another sample out for more expensive and more thorough analysis now, but anticipatory grief has fallen as a shroud around me. I think we're going to lose her, and to do it just before or even during the visit from Amy's 5 year old nephew and 9 year old niece next week.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear god. That sounds too much like where ours were 3 weeks ago. It also sounds like they shared symptoms, so do they have dog food or a supplement in common? [I'm pretty sure it was a specific supplement that cause it in all 3 of ours simultaneously.]
DeleteAlso, with poor Onyx, have you tried: 1) really watery rice with a little chicken (or even chicken broth in it), or 2) Pedialyte? I've used to both to good effect.
There's one other thing that worked for ours REALLY well, if you have access to it: raw game meat, and especially the blood from it. Buffalo is good; elk seems to be even better. The raw meat gets their appetites up, and even if they can't eat it, they will often drink the blood, and that stuff has saved ours more than once. Beef and pork don't seem to work nearly as well for it, though, which makes me think there are nutrients in the game that their bodies partiularly need.
Keep us posted, and in the meantime, Wings asked me to tell you specifically that he'll be burning cedar for Onyx and sending the smoke her way. We both will. After what we've just experienced, we want for you two not to have to do the same, so if good vibes can help at all, she'll have them, believe me.
Thanks to you both. She's spending the next few days at the vet's on IV fluids, pain meds, anti-nausea meds and the like. She turned up her nose at both the sliced up boiled chicken and chicken broth earlier today, but we're hoping that if they can get her guts uncramped and the nausea down, she might start eating again. She weighed in at less than 30 lbs for the first time in a decade or so, so she's certainly lost a bit over the last few weeks.
ReplyDeleteI think I might be able to get both raw buffalo or venison at the grocery now, for some reason, they've both started popping up out here in places I've never seen it before. I'll check on it tomorrow. We know that at least at the start of it, Onyx had whipworm and giardia both, and when Bunny was catching it right when Onyx seemed to be getting somewhat better, we just assumed she'd gotten the same thing. But as I said, after treatment and drugs, she rebounded well, and Onyx seems to have relapsed. It's possible she got reinfected yet again, eating more infected wild animal scat or just infected dirt.