Back to being a pup

We made through the weekend and are pretty much back to our mischievous self. Well, he’s not that mischievous. Its hard to remember he’s a pup sometimes due to his size. Really, he’s been one of the most well behaved pups I’ve ever been around. Anyway, he’s getting back to old tricks. He wants to wrestle with the other dogs, jump on the bed, and run around the house and yard. Its good to see that he’s feeling better, but we have to keep him to “light duty” while his big ‘ol incision heals.

His appetite has returned and he’s enjoying the canned food. The portions are small per docs orders so he always gives us a look like “Is that all? Where’s dinner?”

He has been extra loving the past few days. He’s always a very loving dog but he seems more loving than usual. Last night I was sitting in the floor stretching and he walked up and started nibbling on my left ear then nibbled on my right ear. By the time he was done I had foamy drool hanging from my chin. His mom thought this was pretty funny, but it was kinda gross if you ask me.

Its good to have our baby Moose back to normal, well as normal as a Moose gets.

Emergency Surgery

Its been a rough week! We caught a little cold over the weekend and spent a few days in bed. I was pet sitting for a friend who has four dogs, three cats, three aquariums, a bird, a hamster, roughly twenty sugar gliders, and a koi pond. Between naps I was running to their house to tend to the critters. I awoke from one nap to find that Dozer had ripped some stuffing out of our comforter on the bed. We cleaned up the stuffing and threw his butt in bed without much thought. Monday morning we were still feeling bad and went to the doctor. When we got back from the doctor Dozer had thrown up some stuffing in his cage. While cleaning it up he started throwing up all over the house. By mid-afternoon he was still trying to eat grass and not much else so we took him to the vet. He had some x-rays done but other than some gas build up we could not see anything for sure. He would eat almost nothing and the meds the doc gave him made him very strange. He even snapped at the other dogs which he has never done! Any little noise seemed to startle him and now he would not even drink water. The next day he stayed at the vet all day and had barium treatments with xrays every couple of hours. It was obvious by the end of the day he had a blockage in his stomach and would require surgery. Yesterday he was in surgery for two and half hours. The doctor removed over two feet of stuffing that was strung through his stomach and intestines. He was lucky to be alive. We visited him last night and got to love on him a little before he was put to bed for the night. He made it through the surgery and now infection was our main concern. His mom made it clear that he could not die on her and gave him a strict command to keep on fighting. This morning the reports are good and he seems to be doing better. His next test will be this afternoon when he will be offered soft food and water. If he will accept food and water and keep it down he will be allowed to come home tonight.

update..
He gets to come home, if only for tonight. He's still not eating but hes not running a high temp either. We're going to try to get him to take some food and water tonight, if not he's going back to doc tomorrow. Baby steps but in the right direction...

The day after getting cut open

The Moose was released yesterday for the night. He was restricted to light duty, mushy food, and lots of rest and TLC. He almost seems to know he ate something he should not have. He doesn’t want to eat unless I spoon feed him. He didn’t eat much, but he did eat a little so it’s a step in the right direction. His nubby tail was a wigglin most of the night. He was certainly happy to be home with us.

He did very well considering what he has been through. He even barked a few times so he had to be feeling better.

We took him back to the doc today to hang out while we are work. They wanted to keep an eye on him and still needed to take his stint out since he was starting to eat and drink on his own. I thought they were going to do that yesterday. I was getting ready to leave him this morning and they told me a group of kindergarten kids would be visiting and he was going to be a main attraction. I think they were looking forward to him coming back today!

Everybody loves the Moose!

Here's some pics of his big 'ol incision.

Fasten your seat belt....

and please keep you hands and feet inside the car at all times. Welcome back to the allergy roller coaster! So after all the hoopla with the mange stuff we are back to thinking our baby just has allergies. We finished the process for taking care of the mange and while he was much better he was still itchy. We considered taking him to a dermatologist but they told us he had to be off benedryl for three weeks. After not having benedryl for three days he had scratched himself bloody under his chin and elbows. It was not pretty! He got some special shampoo, lotion, antibiotic, and a light prescription antihistamine. After two weeks he is cleared up again and looking pretty.

Somewhere along the way we switched his food again. Right after we switched his food last time the manufacturer changed the ingredients in their food. The changes seems to benefit their bottom line more than the animals. All there dogs had bad reactions to the new formula so we yet again did more research and found something else. He is now on a whitefish and potatoes type food. He is eating better than I am although I dont think he has food allergy. Even the vet is now convinced he has an air born allergy. The new food may not be necessary but its good for him either way. We made the mistake and ran out of food on Sunday a couple of weeks ago and were forced to try and find something at the local pet store still on his "diet". Have you ever tried to find a dog food without ANY chicken in it? After almost an hour of reading every bag in the store an employee rounded up some vegetarian food with no wheat or corn. He only had to eat it one night thankfully.

The last few weeks our boy seems to be getting a bit more ornery. He has eaten another chair in the living room. He is not listening as much to commands. It seems like he thinks about things before doing them. Like he has choice? We've been putting him in his cage more at night because he has been waking us up in the middle night for no apparent reason. It wouldnt be so bad if he wasnt waking us up by pouncing on our chest. We have decided it is time to have him neutered.

Time for a funny moment. I hear some neighbor kids talking like they were in the driveway or something so I open the front door stepping outside and closing the door behind me. Two kids around ten years old or so are standing there and give me a spiel about wanting to walk my dogs. Without saying a word I crack open the front door and Dozer and Haden stick their heads out. Both the kids jump back and their eyes get real big. I start to tell the kids they should try someone with smaller dogs but get cut off. We hear Suesse barking and running towards to the door and one kid looks at the other and says "lets get out of here". The two quiet big dogs kind of freaked them out but the ten pound loud mouth miniature schnauzer scares 'em off. ;-)

As of last week Dozer is about 104lbs. He didnt want to stand still and scale was going from 104 to 106 so we'll just say 104 for now. This pic was taken yesterday.