A discussion of dogs and illness
I've been kvetching on Twitter a lot about this but I thought I'd add LJ as a place to discuss my dog poop problem :/
My dogs, all three of them, are so freaking sick. Cisco and Kuka have been ill since last Friday, complete with giant piles of dog diarrhea all over my house constantly and consistently. Nala broke with the illness on Monday afternoon and her own mini piles. The problem with Nala being sick is manyfold:
a.) she's already on a limited time and in a sort of doggy hospice and
b.) she can't see where she's going and
c.) her legs go out from under her leading to
d.) she rolls in it.
Nala's already dropped 4 lbs since February. That's 1/3 of her bodyweight. She doesn't have any more to drop. If I didn't have certification of medical care, I'd damn well deserve to be reported for animal cruelty and neglect for how emaciated she is. Her backend is all skin and bones. She eats like a racehorse, though (up until tonight but we shan't discuss that). She just stopped processing the nutrients in the food very well.
So yes, I'm over $400 worth of vet bills, they're on medication and I've gotten 37 hours of sleep from Friday night through to today, including a couple of naps. I'm exhausted, at my wit's end and unable to deal with the dogshit everywhere. I have carpets, by the way, if you weren't aware of that, so the carpet cleaner is out, 24/7.
I'm supposed to be off of work this week to play Assassin's Creed 3. Instead, I'm spending all my time cleaning up dogshit. I've barely gotten into the game, since freaking Tuesday, because of the dogs' being sick.
The medication they're on has to be eaten with certain absorbent foods so, since Friday, I've boiled over 30 lbs of potatoes. The dogs love it but I'm about to kill them because in addition to the potatoes, I've got to mix in yogurt, special canned food that costs three bucks a fucking CAN (and a can lasts one day, MAX), and, of course, they won't eat the pills unless they're in pill pockets. A normal attempt to get them fed is 10 minutes, I'm over 25 minutes two times a day, just to feed them. Because the potatoes have to be warmed or they won't mash with the wet food and then they won't coat the little bit of dry food that I can mix in and if the dry food isn't coated, Cisco won't eat it and omg, WIT'S END REACHED
The worst part, though, is that no one can definitively figure out how Cisco and Kuka got it in the first place. We haven't been going for walk's because I was sick, myself. They haven't eaten anything funky. There's been no change to rhythm and routine. The only thing I can think of is that a neighbor got evicted for having 8 pit bulls in a tiny backyard, one of which was fairly vicious and they think I turned them in (which I didn't but whatever, not all that material to the storytelling). So the thought is, right now, that they gave my dogs ex-lax. Then, once the rampaging diarrhea (and subsequent bacterial infection because my dogs are old and their digestion system SUCKS) started, Nala rolled in Kuka's poop and got some of the massive bacterial infection and that's why she got it so much later than they did. One of the other neighbors saw them sticking something in the fence on Friday so, I'm probably going to go with that.
My dogs, all three of them, are so freaking sick. Cisco and Kuka have been ill since last Friday, complete with giant piles of dog diarrhea all over my house constantly and consistently. Nala broke with the illness on Monday afternoon and her own mini piles. The problem with Nala being sick is manyfold:
a.) she's already on a limited time and in a sort of doggy hospice and
b.) she can't see where she's going and
c.) her legs go out from under her leading to
d.) she rolls in it.
Nala's already dropped 4 lbs since February. That's 1/3 of her bodyweight. She doesn't have any more to drop. If I didn't have certification of medical care, I'd damn well deserve to be reported for animal cruelty and neglect for how emaciated she is. Her backend is all skin and bones. She eats like a racehorse, though (up until tonight but we shan't discuss that). She just stopped processing the nutrients in the food very well.
So yes, I'm over $400 worth of vet bills, they're on medication and I've gotten 37 hours of sleep from Friday night through to today, including a couple of naps. I'm exhausted, at my wit's end and unable to deal with the dogshit everywhere. I have carpets, by the way, if you weren't aware of that, so the carpet cleaner is out, 24/7.
I'm supposed to be off of work this week to play Assassin's Creed 3. Instead, I'm spending all my time cleaning up dogshit. I've barely gotten into the game, since freaking Tuesday, because of the dogs' being sick.
The medication they're on has to be eaten with certain absorbent foods so, since Friday, I've boiled over 30 lbs of potatoes. The dogs love it but I'm about to kill them because in addition to the potatoes, I've got to mix in yogurt, special canned food that costs three bucks a fucking CAN (and a can lasts one day, MAX), and, of course, they won't eat the pills unless they're in pill pockets. A normal attempt to get them fed is 10 minutes, I'm over 25 minutes two times a day, just to feed them. Because the potatoes have to be warmed or they won't mash with the wet food and then they won't coat the little bit of dry food that I can mix in and if the dry food isn't coated, Cisco won't eat it and omg, WIT'S END REACHED
The worst part, though, is that no one can definitively figure out how Cisco and Kuka got it in the first place. We haven't been going for walk's because I was sick, myself. They haven't eaten anything funky. There's been no change to rhythm and routine. The only thing I can think of is that a neighbor got evicted for having 8 pit bulls in a tiny backyard, one of which was fairly vicious and they think I turned them in (which I didn't but whatever, not all that material to the storytelling). So the thought is, right now, that they gave my dogs ex-lax. Then, once the rampaging diarrhea (and subsequent bacterial infection because my dogs are old and their digestion system SUCKS) started, Nala rolled in Kuka's poop and got some of the massive bacterial infection and that's why she got it so much later than they did. One of the other neighbors saw them sticking something in the fence on Friday so, I'm probably going to go with that.