I have a disgusting one for you today, so if you have a weak stomach, skip this part of the newsletter
Some of you know about Rocky, my almost four year old lab mix. Rocky suffers from seizures, and we've had a hard time getting them controlled. Recently we've doubled the dosage of one medication, maxed out another, and added a third dose of another. He takes 25 pills a day, split between four times. He gets the pills stuffed into pieces of cut up hot dog and he gobbles them up without issue. A couple of the medications have sedative properties, so when he's not having a seizure, Rocky is a pretty chill dog.
Recently, we added a puppy to the family. Her name is Mina (like Mina Harker from Dracula). Mina is not quite six months old, and she is not a chill dog. She is a rambunctious puppy. Most of the time she's great. She loves to play and Rocky will happily fight over rubber chickens or chase her around the yard whenever she wants. When she's not great, it's because she's eating poop. Yup, it's a disgusting habit we haven't been able to break her of yet. We're working on it, though, so I'm hopeful this is a temporary, albeit super gross, problem.
Now, Mina especially loves to eat Rocky's poop, which I'm guessing is due to the two whole hot dogs he eats throughout the course of a day. I mean, how can we possibly expect her to resist? Recently her penchant for Rocky's treats finally came back to bite her in the ass. A couple of days ago both dogs went outside for potty breaks, then came back in after a few minutes. Not long after, Mina started acting funny. A little wobbly, almost like she was drunk. She got sick once, and was having trouble holding her bladder. Assuming she wasn't feeling well because she likely followed Rocky around the yard and ate her favourite snack fresh from the source, we settled her onto some towels on her big comfy bed, and let her rest. After a bit she got up to drink some water, still a little wobbly, but much less so. After a couple of hours of sleep, she was back to normal, with no trace of wobbliness or leaky bladder remaining.
It wasn't until a little later on that evening that I realized what had probably happened.
Guys, I think Mina drugged herself eating partially undigested medication from Rocky's poop (if it moved through him too quickly, which is possible, or maybe even from vomit if he made himself sick running around too quickly after eating).
Her symptoms were right in line with symptoms caused by two of the medications, and pretty common when a dog first starts taking them. Rocky is used to the medications by now, so even though he's always relaxed, he's never drunk off of them.
Anyway, they're both feeling better now, so that's what matters. But I guess we're going to have to try harder to get the yard picked up every time they go out, instead of once a day.
If you want to help us with the exorbitant cost of Rocky's medicine, check out the Journals for Rocky section on my website
chantalroome.com/journals. I designed a series of reasonably priced reading journals that are for sale on Amazon, and I use the money earned from their sale to put a tiny dent in the cost of Rocky's medication.
