slate ill again – it never rains but it pours
January 24th, 2012 § 2 Comments
It is definitely pouring in all senses of the word, here.
Chucking it down with rain for starters, so Slate and I got soaked on our walk this morning.
And then, when we got back, Slate refused her breakfast. Last night she seemed to be feeling slightly nauseous. (When feeling nauseous she nibbles on something almost obsessively and with a strange intensity.)
This weekend just passed, one of the dogs threw up yellow bile in the night. Since Grey was wearing her buster collar and it was clean, I figured this was Slate. At the time, I put it down to a one-off thing.
But now, slowly, the symptoms mount up. This is, as usual, how it starts.
Great, so now I have two sick dogs of one kind or another.
I’m not going to put Slate back on my secret supply of metronidazole – FishZole. Doing it again just one month since the last time without going to the vet, well I’m just not going to do that.
I did change her food yesterday, since we finished a sack of Mike’s WorkingHPRs food and I had put her on Arden Grange Lamb & Rice. (I tend to just pick up whichever of the decent foods are on special offer.) I’ve now put her back on the WorkingHPRs and we’ll see what happens. But she has been fine on AG Lamb and Rice before, so I doubt it’s that.
I very much suspect this is going to result in more vet visits; more money spent; more poo samples; more runny bloody poos; more cleaning up sick; more trying to prevent nauseous dog from eating bedding, and so on…
Sheesh.
Oh Jo I’m really sorry to hear about Slate. It must be very worrying for you. I agree, too soon for more antibiotics. I have a friend who is a training in canine homeopathy. Would you be interested in contacting her. I’m sure she could help with Slate’s condition. I know that the first thing she would say is to change her diet from dry food to a natural diet is that’s really easy to follow. Would you be prepared to do that. If so, then please email me and I’ll give you Kay’s details. She’s a lovely lady with a true love of dogs. My working cocker had an abscess on his side. She gave me stuff to treat him from the inside …out! I have never in my life seen a transformation in this type of thing before. Truly amazing. If you would like me to contact her to see if she is available at the moment I am delighted to do that for you.
Annie xxxx
Hi Annie
Thanks for the ideas and the thoughts are very appreciated. However, to be fair, I’m very sceptical about homeopathy! I’m all for natural remedies and less invasive treatment, but homeopathy doesn’t convince me… no offence meant to anyone who uses it or practises it.
I would feed a wet food if I could, but it doesn’t work out affordable and we also don’t have the storage space for tins/packs or food to cook ourselves for them. (Same for BARF with freezer space.)
Slate this evening is back to her old self and zooming around like a loon.
There are a few things about this which I’m thinking about… I started her on both Salmon Oil from Fish4Dogs and also Joint Aid on approx Weds/Thurs last week, and the first sign of illness (yellow bile throw-up) was Fri night/Sat morning.
I am thinking of the very yellow poo we got after the last course of ABs and how I thought that was pancreatitis and went for a really low fat diet, which seemed to fix things. Perhaps the salmon oil, being high in fat, is the cause? Perhaps she can’t tolerate a high fat diet, for whatever reason, something to do with ageing?
I’m going to speak to the vet on Friday when I take Grey in. Slate might need a blood work up to see what’s going on…