Like the Cheshire Cat. Is Cassie a Cheshire Dog?
We now have a vet’s appointment at 8:30 on Sunday morning (any question why I favor this vet?). That will be difficult: it’s a half-hour or forty minutes to the guy’s office, and I have to be at the church at 10. So it will mean flying across the city through the usual challenging traffic, flying back, dropping her off, and flying to the church. Complicating matters, M’hijito is leaving Charley here Sunday a.m. so he can drive to Colorado to visit his 104-year-old grandmother.
Oh, God.
They wanted to see her at 11:30 tomorrow, but church has a shindig tomorrow afternoon, for which choir call is noon. I do not want to miss it, but probably should have given up and opted the event, to get the little dog to a doctor sooner. Asked if they could manage something in the afternoon or earlier in the morning: no chance.
Perhaps I exaggerate how sick she is. Hope so.
So she quit eating altogether. In spite of not having consumed a bite of food for a day and a half, she still had diarrhea this morning. That was weird. When I did coax her to eat a little hamburger, a day or so ago, she perked up quite a bit, so I figure food is good.
Naturally I take recourse to the Hypochondriac’s Treasure Chest: the Internet. Google “how to coax sick dog to eat.” And lo! Among the several suggests was baby food.
Trot down to a grocery store and buy a bottle (1) of puréed turkey. AJ’s has an extremely limited selection, and most of the stuff was veggies or fruit. The turkey was the only unalloyed meat. Fly home with this stuff…
Ruby, who is unafflicted, naturally was waiting by the door. That dog went berserk before I even got the lid off. She wanted that baby food!
Fought off the puppy. With difficulty, flang her out of the bedroom where Cassie was hiding. Spooned up some of the stuff, and by golly…after a tentative start, she ate it. Eventually she got the whole jarful down — that was only 2.5 ounces, but it’s 2.5 ounces better than none. Normally they each eat a quarter-pound of food per meal — half a pound a day.
It’s the first thing she’s eaten in two days. So I’m hoping that if I can get one bottle of it down her tomorrow morning and another before I leave for choir and one in the evening, that will be enough to sustain her. Exactly how I’m supposed to deal with letting her outside and back in while I’m hanging out in the choir room half the day escapes me…but I think what I’ll have to do is leave the back door open, and pray for the best.
So with this success chalked up, I ran over to the Walmart and stocked up on half-a-dozen bottles of the stuff, enough to last through Monday. By then, I hope, we’ll have a better idea of how to treat this thing, if it can be treated at all.
You know, on the 14th I wrote that Cassie had been sick for 10 days…that would mean this ailment became evident on the 4th. That’s four weeks. No wonder the poor little beast is exhausted!
It probably is remarkable that she’s still alive at all. If she had some ordinary bronchitis, you’d think it would have passed by now. Vet said he’s concerned that the problem is something a lot worse than Valley fever…but he didn’t say what. TB? Indeed, some fairly colorful ailments can cause a chronic cough and choking. Heart disease. Object lodged in the throat. Tracheal collapse. Heartworm. Canine influenza. Asthma. Chronic bronchitis. Cancer.
Lovely.