Sick as a dog and a dog's life

Well another week has just flown right by. Can you believe it? Casey and I both got sick this week. Felt like a 48-hour flu type thing. Not fun. We were a pathetic useless pair. Tonight will be a chance for us to catch up on all the chores we let slide while we wallowed in our sickness on the couch, slurping chicken noodle soup and drinking gatorade. Nighttime was a nyquil blur. Then miraculously we both wake up this morning and the achiness is gone, the phlegm is still hanging on and I can't really taste anything (except for Doritos and Coca-Cola), but for the most part we feel much better.

Stinker 2 had her weekly adventure, as usual. This week she discovered gorilla glue! She left a trail of it from her doggy bed in the living room, through the kitchen, on to the back deck, and into the back yard; where we found the bottle sitting in a pool of its own innards. We spoke to the vet and we are keeping a close eye on her. From what we can tell she didn't ingest much of it (the bottle still had a lot in it and the amount missing from the bottle looked like the amount on our hardwood floors (!!!) and what had pooled around the bottle) but if she starts having digestion issues or loses her appetite we are in trouble and will have to take her in for an xray and possibly emergency surgery. When I hear a vet say the words "xray" and "emergency surgery" this is what I think, "$$$$ holy booger beans batman @!$#@!#!$%##%!#!" I keep it all inside though. It's difficult to put a price on the life of something I love so much. We'll do what we have to do.

Gorilla glue expands along as it is wet, so you can imagine what it does sitting in one's stomach or intestines. The poor thing also has it all over the bottom of her paws, we had to pry two of her paw pads apart and trim a lot of hair off. She also has it stuck to her lip. Not on the fur but on the skin. Another thing we are supposed to keep an eye on. The doc says we need to check for sores or ulcers in her mouth, a sign of irritation from the solvent in the glue and also a sign that she actually did swallow some of it. As far as removing the glue from her lip he said it will wear off over time. Something about that part of the skin exfoliating itself and regenerating new cells, etc. Its stuck on there pretty good though, so I am not sure. I wonder how long it will take to wear off. For humans, you can remove gorilla glue by rubbing a cue-tip soaked in nail polish remover over the area. I am not sure I want to do this to a dog, especially with the area being so close to the inside of her mouth. I am already having to worry about her ingesting gorilla glue; I don't want to worry about her ingesting nail polish remover too.

Momma Bean, do you have any advice?? Did you ever see such a thing while working at the clinic?

Well, the good news is as of now she has no sores or ulcers nor digestion issues. She is just as playful and hungry as a healthy six month old puppy should be. The vet said that dogs are much more durable than we think so not to worry until there are signs of something wrong. Thanks doc, easier said than done, but a consolation nonetheless.

We are getting her spayed in two weeks. Assuming this glue situation dissolves into a distant memory, our biggest challenge will be keeping her calm and relatively still while she recovers. This will be difficult with her 1.5 year old boxer brother in the house. We may have to take Rocky to my MIL's for the week while Holly recovers, but I am not completely sold on this idea. Rocky hates to be away from his humans. He gets very anxious and stops eating. Poor guy, he can be a nervous wreck. We think it has to do with wherever he came from. We adopted him from the humane society. The humane society rescued him from the pound the day before he was scheduled to be euthanized. The pound had found him abandoned roaming the streets of Knoxville. It's hard to believe someone just abandoned what appears to be a full-bred brindle boxer puppy. We think he was abused. When we first got him he would cower if you raised your arm or hand. I imagine he belonged to someone who didn't have the patience or understanding to deal with the puppy stages of raising a large breed dog. He is small for a boxer, but at 55 lbs. he's no lap dog, that's for sure. Of course he doesn't know that he is not a lap dog. He behaves as though he is a lap dog trapped inside a boxer body.

Lucky for us God had another plan for Mr. Rockford "Rocky" Morrison; he was meant to be in our loving patient home. We are happy to say he has been "off the streets" for six months now. His hard-knock Annie days are over and with each passing month he becomes more calm.