causes for celebration

Our first cause for celebration is more the form of a sigh of relief. We live just a few hundred yards from Van Cortland Park -- and the section we live closest to is woods (as opposed to the groomed grass and playing fields on the other side of the park). As folks know, I hunt our dogs and we exercise them off-leash in the park 99% of the time. But being an urban park, you can find all kinds of weird stuff out in the woods... and sadly, sometimes not being able to see what they might get into is one of the calculated risks you take when you have hard-running dogs like ours.

Jozsi gave us a scare two nights ago. Meg took him out for their regular late afternoon romp, brought them home, and about a half hour after dinner, he vomited. Poop. Nasty nasty poop. I came home from work while Meg was cleaning everything up -- but I immediately noticed Jozsi was unsteady on his feet and not quite with it. In the 5 minutes it took to grab directions to our emergency vet, I thought he was going to black out on me.

The shorter version of the outcome is that we don't know what he ate -- but when the vet at The Veterinary Emergency Group induced vomiting later that evening, the vast majority of what she got out was more fecal matter. Our best guess at this point is that he ate a drug-user's feces that still had some kind of residual stuff in it. He was kept overnight, given IV fluids and a round of activated charcoal to neutralise anything that might still be down there. All his X-rays and bloodwork came back normal -- and after feeding him a very light, mostly-rice breakfast that he held down just fine, he seemed sufficiently back to normal (ie. wrestling Momo) that I decided to go in late to work after all. When Meg took him out in the afternoon he was up to his usual tricks. We'll feed him a couple of smaller 'white' meals this evening to ease his stomach back into food -- but mercifully he appears to be his same old safe.

I was glad to have seen Kim's post about toxic ingestions -- and even more grateful to call her to get some reassurance. She also suggested that even though it wasn't really the season to be worried about anti-freeze, who knows what folk are dumping in the park -- and so we had Jozsi tested for that, too, and which came back negative. Thanks, Kim. I guess one of the trade-offs of urban life with bird-dogs is that there may be more random hazards, but there are often a lot more after-hours treatment options. This is the second time we've used the folks at Vet Emergency Group -- and they've been really good to work with, especially under stressful situations. The key here, though, is know what your options are ahead of time -- and keep the number in your phone.

While I think there was a part of him that enjoyed having his parents to himself the other night, Momo was very happy to see his brother in the morning -- and spent a good 10mins cleaning the remains of the activated charcoal that was all over Jozsi's head. Sickeningly cute.

But today is a special day indeed! While it is the opening date for both You Don't Mess with the Zohan and Oscar-nominated Mongol, it is also Momo's 3rd birthday! Happy Birthday! In a nice twist of circumstance, we just got in contact with Momo's brother, Tavish, for the first time. (When they were pups at the farm, Momo was 'Purple' and Tavish was 'Orange'.) But Tracy, Tavish's mother, sent us this picture from the VCCNE Fun Day in 2006. Tavish is on the left, their mother Makin is in the middle, and their sister Mattie is on the right. I can certainly see the family resemblance. So, happy birthday to Tavish and Mattie, as well!

Who would have known just how far this dog, Widdershins Momchil JH, would have taken us.

Oh, this isn't too bad a reason to celebrate either.