On The Edge

Thank you to all of you who have left encouraging comments  and emailed me asking about my sick fur kids. I'll give you an update on the situation.

Most of my dogs have had this illness which causes loss of appetite, vomiting and watery diarrhea. It took Fudge about three weeks to get over it, but some of the others have gotten better much faster. Morgan was sick for about 36 hours and is now fine again.

We don't know exactly what we're dealing with but we've eliminated many possibilities and my vet and the vets at the University feel the dogs probably have salmonella poisoning from wildlife in the yard. Raccoons, opossum, and skunks can all bring the disease into backyards and leave it in their urine, feces and saliva. It's highly contagious and when the dog investigates the area or drinks from infected water, they can pick it up.

Sky is in his second week of the illness.

He's eating and drinking well and is on medication, so we're hoping that he soon starts showing some improvement

Last week Tess became sick, but was much improved in about four days.

On Tuesday morning Bailey became sick. She is doing better but is still on medication and special food.

Then there's Samba. Because of her MMM and long term steroid use to control it, her immune system is compromised. She is a very sick dog. She's been sick for about a month now and hasn't shown any real improvement. She'd have a good day followed by a complete crash. In the past two weeks she has lost eleven pounds and is so frail that I worry about breaking a bone when I handle her.

Because of the vomiting and uncontrollable diarrhea, she is getting no nutrition from the small amount of food that I can coax her to eat. Her body had started feeding on itself. She has no fat left and now the muscle is being used to keep her alive. On Tuesday morning when the vet examined her, he said that we're very close to the point of no return. If she loses about two more pounds, her body won't be able to come back from this.

On Tuesday she received an injection for nausea.  He said that her intestinal tract is a mess, but she's still a happy dog and suggested I try feeding her liver. Over several hours  that day she ate four chicken livers and about 1/4 cup of kibble. The injection worked and she didn't vomit and went for 32 hours without a bout of diarrhea.

The next day she didn't want liver anymore, but did manage to eat about 1/2 cup of kibble with each piece being hand fed. Her stool yesterday was slightly improved.

Today she has eaten almost a cup of kibble and her stool is about the same. Tomorrow morning she'll get another Cerenia injection for nausea and we hope it will get her thru the weekend and allow her to continue eating. We're very close to the line. If she isn't improving by Monday, we'll  probably have to say goodbye. As you can imagine, I'm spending every minute trying to coax her to eat and holding my breath waiting to see if it stays inside her.

I'm tired and emotional and trying everything I can think of to keep her going, but there isn't a lot more I can do.