Ultrasound

Indi had an ultrasound today and it revealed...nothing. They couldn't see anything wrong going on at all. I was sure they would see something wrong with her pancreas. I was worried there might be a mass somewhere. But everything looked fine.

She was given an antiemetic and it's definitely helped. So far she's held down her early dinner. It's the first meal she's kept since Saturday.

Next step is to see the specialist. They might need to do an endoscope on her which worries me. But we really need to find out what's going on.

Indi Illness

Indigo hasn't been feeling well lately. She's always had the on and off again problem of vomiting bile late at night if her stomach was empty. We sovled the issue when she was younger by giving her some treats before bedtime. Occasionally with her raw diet she will vomit up a few chunks of bone her stomach was not digesting well. We adjusted which kinds of bones she ate and that mostly solved the issue. Certain ones were more likely to upset her stomach.

Over the last few years she will randomly look sick. She tucks up her tummy, rushes to a corner, sometimes tries to vomit, other times just huddles there miserable. A few minutes later she's back to normal. Over the last couple of months this has increased and now on some days she will refuse to eat. If you know Indi, you know this is far from normal.

We had a complete blood work done, including a special pancreatitis test we sent off to Texas. Her numbers for the pancreas were only slightly elevated, but we did find out that she was B-12 deficient. It seems her intestines can no long absorb this vitamin so she has been getting weekly shots for just over a month now.

Indi started doing better after the shots began, so I was hoping that was going to solve our problem, but this weekend she had another spell. This time it's a little worse. She's vomiting up the little food she eats (normally it's just bile or bile and grass) and she's having very loose stools.

This morning she was very eager to eat breakfast but barely touched it. I managed to get her to eat some bread, which came up an hour later. Yesterday she happily ate hotdogs, but let me tell you that was a mistake. it's not fun waking up at 1am to clean up hotdogs mixed with canned dog food. At least Indi is smart and tries to vomit in the bathroom or a corner.

I have a call into my vet and I asked my friend (a former client) who is a vet, but not practicing. She suggested I see an internal medicine specialist, so I'll discuss that with my vet and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

To Add Insult to Injury...

On top of feeling down in the dumps yesterday, Porter is having an allergic reaction to something this morning. We don't know if he keeps getting stung by bees, bit by spiders, or is allergic to a plant in the yard, but this is the third time his face has swollen up.

Poor guy was miserable pawing at his face and rubbing it on the ground. Benadryl did the trick for a few hours but then it started getting worse again so we headed to the vet. Now he's on prednisone to make him more comfortable.

The good news is he was ready for breakfast this morning, so his stomach is feeling much better! I still kept him hom from our FCR Fun Day just in case he caught something he could pass on to the other dogs.

Sick Pup

Poor Porter isn't feeling well today. He refused to eat breakfast, which is rare, but I thought it was because I offered him ground chicken hearts and veggies. He ate a small amount fine last night so I figured he was just being picky and didn't want that much of it this morning.

That's not the case. He's turning his nose up at treats and deli meat. He actually puts his ears down and backs away like I'm trying to poison him when I hold out something to eat.

Tomorrow is our big Flat-Coated Retriever Fun Day were we get to hang out, do agility, and swim all day long. I hope he's feeling up to going.