not a good night
December 5th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Slate made herself a bed, including pillow and duvet.
I’m not sure what is up with Slate…
Last night she ate her dinner with reasonable enthusiasm (albeit not back to her usual ‘pig’ self). Many hours later, at around 10pm, she started obsessively and anxiously eating her toe nails, and then this moved to attempting to eat her vet bed – which was under her toe-nails.
This eating-inedible-things was because she was feeling nauseous: When Slate feels anxious or unwell, her first response is to eat inedible things. (Hence she nearly died last Xmas, when she ate lots of sand on the beach whilst being harassed by another dog. She needed emergency surgery and her intestines flushed through. If we hadn’t rushed her to the vet, they would have ruptured.)
After the toe-nail-eating, she then threw up her dinner. I even saw a few sausage bits from training that morning, in there! And I was fairly sure that the metronidazole tablet she had at dinner time was in there too.
Then she slept for a while. Just before I went to bed, I gave her another metronidazole tablet to replace the one she threw up.
Unfortunately, eating this had the effect of reactivating her nausea and she then started to eat her toe-nails once again. Sheesh.
I was reluctant to go to bed and leave her there, afraid that she would move onto blanket-eating and end up needing emergency surgery again. I wondered if I should muzzle her to stop her eating inedible things, but if she threw up with a muzzle on, she could suffocate on her own vomit…
So there I was, at 2am on a Sunday night, wandering the streets of town, trying to see if some fresh air would help her. She was obsessed and preoccupied with attempting to eat everything we came across – she particularly wanted grass, but in the absence of grass… Hell – ground, leaves – anything would do, it seemed.
We came back indoors and I attempted to settle her down so I could go to bed. She was ok whilst I was stroking her, most of the time, but I did have to push her head away from her toenails a few times and eventually I decided to go upstairs and leave her eating them – and to listen out for blanket-eating.
I then had a crap night’s sleep, waking up every hour (accidentally), because to hear what she was up to. She did seem to settle down, but this didn’t stop me waking up. When I came downstairs this morning, she was toe-nail-eating again and her bed has toe-nail bits scattered all over it! I guess I won’t need to clip her nails for a while then!
She’s not thrown up since and there’ve been no bad poos again, either. She’s had a spoonful of Chappie (wet dog food, traditionally given to sick dogs), and that seems to have stayed down. So I hope the metronidazole has kicked in and is working.
Hi Jo, I’m sorry to hear about poor Slate. Was the antibiotic given for nausea; has she been ill lately? I’ve had experience that this antibiotic can cause nausea so maybe it might be worthwhile getting in touch with the vet for an alternative and perhaps they can give something to settle her tummy. You could maybe try some live yogurt in the meantime. The vet has a great paste that is used after gastro problems to help reintroduce the good bacteria.
I know its horrible when this happens so I hope she’s back to feeling better very soon. Its such a worry for you.
Take care and hugs to Slate.
Annie xxx
Annie, the antibiotic was given after what happened yesterday (see previous post), when she again had the same symptoms she has had in the past.
I couldn’t get in touch with the vet to give her an alternative antibiotic after she’s had just one tablet – that’s not long enough to know if it was working.
This happens frequently with Slate – perhaps once or twice a year. After getting tired of forking out £70 for poo analyses and vet visits, when we now know exactly what meds she needs in the first place, we have found a source of the antibiotic the vet gives us. There’s a post again somewhere else here about that (‘Fish Zole’). We get it in the US and it’s sold as medication for fish (!) but is exactly the same thing. We got it after a tip off a beagle breeder’s website.
I will be using the live yoghurt and the probiotics and prebiotics when her antibiotics stop, but there’s not much point in using them now – since the antibiotics will kill all the good bacteria as well as the bad.
The good news is that the metronidazole does seem to be working. She has slept all day and eaten her Chappie dinner ravenously.
Let’s hope I get a good night’s sleep!