Saturday, July 26, 2008
Jo Jo The One Pound Wonder Dog
We have had a busy and event filled week.
Samantha's new litte dog, Jo Jo, decided that she wasn't feeling well and started not wanting to eat. This made her blood sugar so low that she passed out and scared the you know what out of all of us. We took her to the vet and they thought she might have a parasite but nothing was showing up in her stool samples.
I took her to the vet several times last week, and each time she weighed all of ONE pound. This girl needed to eat. She is a very finicky eater so we thought she just wasn't liking what we were offering her. The vet gave us some special food with added minerals and vitamins in it and she ate that ok for about 24 hour hours.
Zach was playing in a baseball tournament all week and Garrett was attending a baseball camp all week. Add that to taking the dog to the vet several times and spending hours trying to spoon feed her nourishment and you get one hectic week.
I want to add that Samantha was doing a great job taking care of her little dog. However, it would become apparent very soon that this dog had problems that were way bigger than this 12 year old could handle.
Zach had a double header about 30 minutes from our house on Thursday. The first game started at 3:00 so I went and left the other kids home to monitor the dog. They won there game and therefore were having a second game at 8:00 p.m.. I left and came home to check on everyone and when I walked into the door Samantha met me with a worried look in her eyes. Jo Jo was very listless again and not eating.
Listless was a major under statement. When I picked her up she couldn't hold her head up and if you set her down her legs went right out from under her. By now the vet was closed so I rushed her to the emergency animal hospital about 30 miles away praying the whole time she didn't die right there in the car. I was really scared.
We arrived at the vet and they took her right in and put her on a IV to get her blood sugar levels up. He was pretty sure she did not have Parvo, one of the first things you think of with a puppy, however he was also perplexed as to why she was not eating. She perked up pretty quickly once her blood sugar levels came back up and I left her there for the doctor to run some tests. I was a nervous wreck. I had left Samantha at home crying, terrified that her little dog was dying, and to be honest I wasn't really sure if she was going to be OK or not.
The emergency vet happened to be close to the ball field Zach was playing at so I headed over there to pass some time until the vet called me back. I got a call about 45 minutes later. It seems our little one pound wonder has a parasite that this veterinarian has only seen four times in his 25 years of practice (my kids always get strange ailments, why should our animals be any different?). The parasite dies within a few minutes of hitting the open air so that is why it wasn't showing up in any stool samples I had taken to the vet earlier in the week. He was treating her and though she would be just fine after a few days.
Whew. I was so relieved and so was Samantha when I called her. I picked Jo Jo up at the hospital the next morning at 7:30 a.m. with instructions to make sure I fed her every two hours to keep her blood sugar levels up. She should start feeling better in about 24 hours. So, for the last two days it has been like having a new born in the house. We have been spoon feeding her baby food (she likes the Gerber's turkey with gravy the best) and force feeding her honey to keep her blood sugar levels up. When I carried the dog into our bedroom at 3:00 a.m. this morning because she wouldn't eat and I needed Dave to help me you should have seen the look on his face. We thought we were done with middle of the night feedings.
The good news is that this morning Jo Jo seems much better and she actually ate about a tablespoon of real dog food. She seemed very hungry and played for about ten minutes after she ate. This is a HUGE improvement. We are all thrilled.
Now I am off to clean my house. We have family coming over tomorrow and with all the running around this week and drama the house is a mess. I am waaaay behind. So the troops are ready for action with mops and brooms and I am off to supervise and help.
Perhaps if I'm lucky, there is a nap in my future.
Samantha's new litte dog, Jo Jo, decided that she wasn't feeling well and started not wanting to eat. This made her blood sugar so low that she passed out and scared the you know what out of all of us. We took her to the vet and they thought she might have a parasite but nothing was showing up in her stool samples.
I took her to the vet several times last week, and each time she weighed all of ONE pound. This girl needed to eat. She is a very finicky eater so we thought she just wasn't liking what we were offering her. The vet gave us some special food with added minerals and vitamins in it and she ate that ok for about 24 hour hours.
Zach was playing in a baseball tournament all week and Garrett was attending a baseball camp all week. Add that to taking the dog to the vet several times and spending hours trying to spoon feed her nourishment and you get one hectic week.
I want to add that Samantha was doing a great job taking care of her little dog. However, it would become apparent very soon that this dog had problems that were way bigger than this 12 year old could handle.
Zach had a double header about 30 minutes from our house on Thursday. The first game started at 3:00 so I went and left the other kids home to monitor the dog. They won there game and therefore were having a second game at 8:00 p.m.. I left and came home to check on everyone and when I walked into the door Samantha met me with a worried look in her eyes. Jo Jo was very listless again and not eating.
Listless was a major under statement. When I picked her up she couldn't hold her head up and if you set her down her legs went right out from under her. By now the vet was closed so I rushed her to the emergency animal hospital about 30 miles away praying the whole time she didn't die right there in the car. I was really scared.
We arrived at the vet and they took her right in and put her on a IV to get her blood sugar levels up. He was pretty sure she did not have Parvo, one of the first things you think of with a puppy, however he was also perplexed as to why she was not eating. She perked up pretty quickly once her blood sugar levels came back up and I left her there for the doctor to run some tests. I was a nervous wreck. I had left Samantha at home crying, terrified that her little dog was dying, and to be honest I wasn't really sure if she was going to be OK or not.
The emergency vet happened to be close to the ball field Zach was playing at so I headed over there to pass some time until the vet called me back. I got a call about 45 minutes later. It seems our little one pound wonder has a parasite that this veterinarian has only seen four times in his 25 years of practice (my kids always get strange ailments, why should our animals be any different?). The parasite dies within a few minutes of hitting the open air so that is why it wasn't showing up in any stool samples I had taken to the vet earlier in the week. He was treating her and though she would be just fine after a few days.
Whew. I was so relieved and so was Samantha when I called her. I picked Jo Jo up at the hospital the next morning at 7:30 a.m. with instructions to make sure I fed her every two hours to keep her blood sugar levels up. She should start feeling better in about 24 hours. So, for the last two days it has been like having a new born in the house. We have been spoon feeding her baby food (she likes the Gerber's turkey with gravy the best) and force feeding her honey to keep her blood sugar levels up. When I carried the dog into our bedroom at 3:00 a.m. this morning because she wouldn't eat and I needed Dave to help me you should have seen the look on his face. We thought we were done with middle of the night feedings.
The good news is that this morning Jo Jo seems much better and she actually ate about a tablespoon of real dog food. She seemed very hungry and played for about ten minutes after she ate. This is a HUGE improvement. We are all thrilled.
Now I am off to clean my house. We have family coming over tomorrow and with all the running around this week and drama the house is a mess. I am waaaay behind. So the troops are ready for action with mops and brooms and I am off to supervise and help.
Perhaps if I'm lucky, there is a nap in my future.
4 Comments:
ohno!
poor.little.thing.
Hope.things.get.better.soon.
Oh goodness! Hectic indeed!! Hopefully she'll keep on getting better. Sounds like she will. She's too cute.
I'm so sorry about your sick pet. Smokey had to go to the ER vet while we were out of town, and boy oh boy, did that cost us an arm and a leg! Thank goodness he and your doggy are fine, but I sure wish there was decent pet insurance. I guess we should just self insure ourselves, but that is so hard to do.
Glad to hear JoJo's doing better.
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