Harry was coughing here and there while we waited for the vet. The vet tech took his temperature, and it was normal. No fever, and very little coughing. Crap. Hard to convince someone there's a problem. I asked Harry to please exhibit some of the malaise he felt the day before so we could get some meds and be on our way.
The vet came in and Harry perked right up, tail wagging, eyes bright, looking like a perfectly healthy dog. I was trying to formulate a way to explain how sick he was, when he sneezed in the vet's direction, and "GLOP!" a three inch long trail of snot flung out of his nostrils and landed on her hand.
"Well aside from the coughing, there's that, I guess," I said, motioning that she might want to wipe the giant booger off her fingers. The sneeze and snot issue was a relatively new development.
Once cleaned off, she examined him, and said that his lungs seemed clear. No pneumonia, but that was without an x-ray or further tests. She said she always treats kennel cough like pre-pneumonia to protect the lungs, and she diagnosed that he had kennel cough. She prescribed an antibiotic and a cough suppressant and we were done.
As I waited for the receptionist to run the credit card, a vet tech came out the door and said hello to Harry. Harry loves people. He got excited, bounced up and down, tail wagging, and once more had a deadly sneeze that let loose yet another unimaginably long snot trail that landed on the guy's shoe, making it look like a giant slug was climbing up his shoelaces.
"Oh, man, I am so sorry," I said to him, a little embarrassed by Harry's sneeze power. "Harry, you got snot all over his shoe."
The tech smiled. "If that's the worst thing that lands on my shoes today, I'll be a happy man. Trust me."
Doctor's orders were for fourteen days of antibiotics three times a day, plus cough suppressant as needed, and no romping around. I asked about how long I could take him for walks, and she said, "In and out to go to the bathroom. He needs to stay quiet to get better."
I don't know how that's going to go over. I'll keep the walks short, but he is a puppy. He needs some exercise. Just not overdoing it. And on the walks, he really doesn't overdo it. In fact, he's very much a stop and contemplate sort of walker. Sometimes he trucks along quickly, but then he'll stop, pick a spot, and set his rump down to soak in the atmosphere. He likes to study his surroundings. Perhaps he's just patient. Even when we get to my door and I reach for my keys in my pocket, he sits himself down. Two seconds later he's back up again, but he doesn't want to rush me.
He has a habit of doing this when dogs get barking around him. As we walk down the sidewalk and the alley of evil dogs comes to their owners' fences and begins their havoc, he just sits himself down and watches them. He doesn't stare. He doesn't appear threatening. He just watches them, as if trying to understand what they're saying. I've informed him that this might get him killed.
His meds have to be given every eight hours. Luckily I figured out the calculations on when we wouldn't have to give them at 3am just before 4:00. 8 a.m., 4 p.m., and midnight. Seems reasonable. He gets one and a half tablets each time (really? you couldn't have given me half-doses? I have to chop up pills?). I guess being used to pit bulls, I'm used to dogs being able to consume anything as large as a quarter without chewing. Granted these pills weren't even penny size, but I guess they were too big for Harry.
I tried putting them in bread. But because he eats such tiny bites, he inevitably spit out the pill. After a few futile attempts, I had to take the route the vet warned me about. "I know it's awful, but you're going to just have to stick them down his throat," she had said.
(Sigh)
Thus ensued Harry v. Stephanie on the kitchen floor for ten minutes. Round after round, the little guy won. I thought I got it in, but two seconds later, it magically appeared on his foot. At one point he needed a breather and shoved his whole head into the crook of my arm, burrowing in and not moving. Maybe when he came back out, I'd be gone.
Twenty minutes later, it was done. One and a half grossly-half-dissolved pills (due to the number of times they had entered Harry's mouth but not gone down the hatch), I had successfully completed the task. I gave Harry a couple of treats, and he appeared to forgive me. I did the math in my head and was overwhelmed with the fact that I was going to have to do that another 41 times. (I didn't tell Harry that though).
Harry was improving. I don't think it was the antibiotics working that quickly, but rather that his body was fighting whatever it was and was winning. He played a bit, and bounced around the room. There is nothing in the world like a puppy bounding after a toy. You can have the worst day in the world, but the moment you see those little paws up in the air and come pouncing onto a toy, you can't help but smile.
He still slept a lot, but wasn't as out of it. In fact, I was beginning to believe that his lack of interest in me might not be him, but just that he wasn't feeling well, and wanted to be left alone.
He slept in the same place again on the bed, and didn't cough as much through the night. I didn't give him the cough medicine, as I wanted to test it during the day just to see his reaction. "Sedation" was listed a side effect, and I wanted to see exactly what they meant, without being terrified at 2 a.m. not being able to wake him up.
But I was terrified at 2 a.m. anyway when I woke up and looked down at the end of my bed to see four little paws up in the air, Harry lying in an s-shape, and his head tilted to the side. My heart skipped a beat at the unthinkable. I reached down, put my hand on his chest, felt it move, then he groaned, coughed, turned over, coughed some more, and went back to sleep without looking at me.
Once I knew he was fine, I was astonished by the stupidity of my initial reaction. When animals die, they don't automatically flip upside down and stick all four feet up the air. They only do that in Looney Tunes cartoons.
Harry's sneezing has subsided. Thank goodness. I can't deal with children who have little boogers in their nose, or wipe their nose on their sleeves leaving a trail of snot; I can deal with dogs a little better, since it's not human snot, but it still is a tad gross on carpet, jeans, and the moment I saw Harry sneeze and in one fluid motion he sneezed the snot out his left nostril, licked off the dangling trail into his mouth, then inhaled the rest back through his nose, I think I threw up a little. I don't care how cute you are, that's down right disgusting.
Not much in the way of plans for the day. I'm hoping since he's feeling a bit better, I can try the crate training for awhile. This crate training doesn't involve holding his bladder, just keeping his mouth shut. If he can manage that, I can actually leave the apartment for more than five minutes (like to go to the grocery store) without him needing a sitter.
He seems a bit more attached to me today. He hadn't followed me around at all yesterday, but already he's followed me into the bathroom, to get my clothes in the closet, and see what I was up to in the kitchen. When he woke up this morning he even greeted me with a tail wag and seemed happy to see me. And you know what? That is why I do this. For that little genuine, sleepy good morning wag that says, "I'm so happy you're here!". It makes poop-picking-up, heartache-watching-them-go, and wiping-projectile-sneeze-snot-off-your-pants all worth it. Well maybe not the sneeze-snot thing. That's still gross.
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