Friday, June 6, 2008

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.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

So glad that Jozsi is ok. What a scare. Just thinking that perhaps it was horse poo as a recently wormed horse's faeces is very toxic to dogs because of the quantity.

Glad she is ok though.

All the best
Zig

Andrew Campbell said...

Zig: now that's a great thought. The park rangers do often come through on horses -- and horse poo is tasty. I wonder, though, if that would have showed up somewhere in the bloodwork. By contrast, drug users we know we have.

Incidentally, Jozsi is all boy.

best from here
A+M+M+J

BlacknTan said...

Scary stuff, Andrew!

A good tip, when you want something ingested to come up in a hurry, fill a turkey baster with hydrogen peroxide and inject it right down the throat. It will clear the contents of the stomach within minutes.

Anonymous said...

Egad, that's horrible! Glad Jozsi is all right!

I may have to skip breakfast today ...

Kim said...

Glad to hear he is feeling better! It is always scary when they eat things they shouldn't...Perhaps I will do a brief blog on antifreeze, just in case...

Kim

Quixotic Bicycles said...

Hmmm... Just this week I came home to find my furniture re-arranged and my rug rolled up. Charley was freaking out (full on spaz mode), pooing like mad and drinking what worked out to almost 2 gallons of water. Did I mention he stunk like high heaven? 6 hours of totally bonkers Labweiler.

I assumed it was hyper anxiety due to my wifes traveling. Nope- low and behold he was having a bad puppy trip after getting jacked up on 5LBS OF DRY BROWNIE MIX.

Its amazing what they think is a good idea at the time...

Glad everyone is ok!

Buster the Vizsla said...

I'm really, really glad Jozsi is fine. What a very scary experience.

Buster's an inveterate scavenger, including poop of the most revolting type. (Is there another?) It never occurred to me until reading yours and Ziggi's posts that the poop could contain toxins. Wiser now.

denise garro said...

glad to here the family is ok.....it is crazy what critters eat....

redgirls-in-scotland said...

Yikes. Too scary. As you know Redgirls DREAM of urbanity. But sometimes just sometimes we realise how many hazards are out there in the big wide world. Tho even in the country it's possible.
14 years ago at age 4 our dear old scavenging nana Cleo nearly died of poisoning. What did she eat? We never found out (tho never again could we look that gamekeeper in the eye)

Anyway just so relieved to hear that Jozsi is OK.

We have been to Kim's blog. Good stuff!

big ginger hugs to all

XXXXXXXXXXX

Anonymous said...

I would like to apologise profusely to Jozsi for calling him a girl.

Apologies

Zig x

Andrew Campbell said...

Zig: Jozsi never knew his masculinity had been called into question. No harm, no foul. Having said that, he's just barely beginning to understand why girls smell good.

Redgirls: Momo's first-love, Lisa the lovely GSP, had a weird poisoning accident when she was about two-years old... and after a couple of almost complete transfusions, she came out of it mostly intact. Watching Jozsi dis-oriented made me really anxious that this was about to happen to us.

love to everyone
A+M+M+J

Delilah and Rocket said...

OMG! Toxic poo! I'm all the wiser for reading your post. Have been to Kim's site too. What wealth of knowledge over there.

Both Mom and Dad know where the emergency vet is. Matter of fact, at mom's urging we switched vets to one that was (a) closer to our house (b) had more than one vet on staff and (c) is associated with an emergency vet clinic in the same area.

So glad Jozi is ok. We can only imagine the anxiety level the two of you must have had.

Daniel Gauss said...

How very much like Sandia's raisin adventure.. right down to the activated carbon. Hope you didn't get charged an exhorbitant amount for "daytime nursing care" while you waited on the tox results ;-)

Christ.. everybody posted a "Wings Win, Wings Win, Wings Win" entry; Margaret's daughter claims she beat me to it, but her time stamp says otherwise, although she says it's manipulated so that she doesn't get caught blogging at work. No question the Wings were going to win..
to your friend who was amazed at the size of the cup: it's because the name of every player on every team who ever one it... is on it. It weighs 35 pounds- all sterling. I read a story week before last, about one of the early winners- back in the 40's or 50's whose baby crapped in the cup. And the current players are drinking champagne out of it. :-O

Makin & Tessa (Lael and Neil) said...

Glad everyone is ok, What a scare.

A lesson learned for us all about having the emergency vet number on the ready. I now have a number of different emergency vet locations logged into the phone which should cover the parks and areas we go to.

Delilah and Rocket said...

OMG! We totally neglected to wish Momo HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Did your mom make you a cake like Pesto's?

Brisztow Jones said...

Rut Row! Mom says I shouldn't ever eat the bum shit... but I never knew why... I am really glad you are ok Jozsi!

Wuff,
Brisztow Jones

Brisztow Jones said...

Happy birthday Momo!

Wuff,
Brisztow Jones