Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Rough Night for Kate

Here is her account:

just got home from the animal hospital with Diesel. Tonight around 8 Diesel started to heave and finally around 9 he threw up three times. Then for about an hour he continued to hack and gag, he was also constantly licking the carpet and his lips and drooling a lot so I called the vet which wasn't open and they said to call the Oradell Animal Hospital. I called them planning to only ask for some advice like should I give him rice or something. They said that it sounded too serious they could hear him hacking on the phone and said I needed to come right in.
He was triaged by some assistant and then brought to a room. We waited about a half hour to see the vet. She examined him and said he needed to have an X-ray to see if he had an obstruction. He was bouncing around the room and acting like his crazy self and I thought maybe it was a waste to bring him in. But he was still gagging and hacking. After she took him from me she came back out and told me that they would have to sedate him to do the x-rays. Big shocker there. I waited an hour and a half before hearing anything from them. In the meantime a bunch of dogs came in. Including a 10 year old doberman that was dying and the poor lady was crying her eyes out. They put me back in the room and the vet finally came in to tell me he had a bunch of air in his belly, but there was no obstruction. I asked her if the air could have been from all the gagging and licking he was doing before and she said yes. She was concerned that he might have an illeus, but that I could take him home and monitor him. I had told her earlier about all the snow he keeps eating and so I asked her if this could cause this. She said that the snow could make his stomach upset and that we shouldn't let him eat anymore. Good luck with that.
They had me wait in the room and the vet tech brought him out. He was stumbling around like he was drunk. His eyes were so droopy and he wasn't himself at all. They gave him some fluid subcutaneously (under his skin) and a shot of Pepcid to ease his stomach. I guess that combined with the sedation cured him. He collapsed on the floor while I was waiting to pay our bill, and fell over while trying to pee outside. I practically had to carry him up the stairs to our room. Hopefully our pet insurance will pay for some of the $747 bill. We have to submit the claim to them, they don't do it directly. We might have to get him a muzzle to wear while he walks so he doesn't eat as much snow. No matter how much we try to watch him and pull him away from it he seems to still eat so much. This is the third time he's thrown up after the eating a large amount of snow. But the other times he was fine after he threw up."

I'll never eat another piece of snow
Sedated Diesel

2 comments:

Mike said...

That is one sad pup.

Ton said...

That first pic is awesome. I wish there was video of him stumbling around. I'd pay to see that.