A New Dog

Quagmire went in for his summer hair cut today. We had them weigh him when we first got there and he's 14.4 which is great. He was a little overweight before which is a leading cause of pancreatitis in dogs (and people for that matter), so he's getting there... maybe another pound or two.
He's a new dog though. His energy is amazing. He's doing better than he was before he was even diagnosed 2 years ago with his valley fever.
He has blood work this coming Wednesday and some booster shots and other than that he's just great.
THANK GOD!!!

Beauty Shot!

My 15lb. Baby

Literally....
He's now on a diet of rice and baby food meats. We've had no vomit in over 12 hours and he's VERY interested in eating. I'm just taking it easy to make sure his stomach doesn't get upset and since he's SUCH a baby about taking pills I haven't been able to get his pepcid in him yet today. I tried shoving it down his throat with a water chaser and he sneezed it across the room and I tried mixing it up in a huge pile of baby food and he ate all around it so for dinner I'm going to crush it up in his food so he has no choice.
It looks like he's just going to have to stay on a bland diet for a long time though. Anything else seems to start a flareup.

*sigh*

He took a road downhill this weekend. Since Saturday night he has only thrown up once (about 2 hours ago - and we think he just drank too much water)... he still has NO appetite other than 2 or 3 pieces of chicken from Chipotle. We shoved a pill in each piece of chicken and he ate them up. Well, except for the pain pill. He chewed that piece of chicken up and spit it back out in my hand. He really HATES the taste of those pills. So, I'll keep an eye on him this evening when Gary is at work. Give him a little water and a piece of chicken or two. He isn't much interested in any other food at the moment. Hopefully the pills kick in soon. We're back to giving him sub Q fluids. He yelped when I stuck the needle in this morning. It made me cry like a baby but I guess if he's reacting to a little pain he's doing better than he was last week.

I'll keep you all updated. :)

Update

He threw up a few times last night. I gave him a pepcid this morning and it seems to be working however he's a little sluggish, his tummy is making funny noises and he's burping a lot. We're hoping that it's because he just missed his Pepcid yesterday. (There were 2 pills in his food bowl and he ate one and we're not sure which one it was). So yeah, I'm a little worried. I might bump his appointment up from next Friday to earlier in the week.

Turkey and Rice was the trick...

We tried eggs this morning. He has always loved eggs but this time wanted nothing to do with them. I had spent an hour and a half making and cooking turkey rice meatballs and I told Gary I'd just DIE if he turned his nose up at those too.
To say he ate them is an understatement. That dog INHALED a pile of turkey and rice, licked the bowl, the floor around the bowl and stared at me for more.
I think we found the magic food.
I also took him up to the vet. I had to pick up a prescription and wanted to way him too. He's put on 4 oz.!

yay!

Spoiled Dog

Quagmire has his appetite back with a vengeance. I'm making him turkey meatballs today and taking his lard butt to the vet this week to get weighed.

Finally!

We just held him down with a big syringe full of baby food. He decided that he really liked it so in an hour (if he doesn't get sick from this) we're going to try some in a bowl and see how that goes!!!

Evening update

Quagmire has pretty much been lounging around the house since he got home. This is actually pretty close to his usual lazy behavior without the begging for dinner and occasional nagging for belly rubs. I'm sure that's right around the corner.
I need to call the vet in the morning to find out WHAT exactly she got him to willingly eat because he's still turning his nose up at everything for me. I force fed him a piece of an egg but it came up shortly after with some water. I'm going to leave his food in the bedroom over night. If he eats great and if he doesn't then he's going to get syringes full of food in the morning. He's got quite a bit of oral medication he has to take (in pill form) and I NEED him to eat for this. How frustrating!

(I'll take any advice I can get at this point!)

Safe and Sound at HOME!

It didn't take him long to find his pile of blankets (freshly washed) on the couch. I put a bowl of water down in front of him and he drank a little and walked off which is great because we don't want him drinking too much and just throwing it up. So self-control is a good sign. He still has a bunch of meds he has to take but now that he's eating food it should be easier to get them down. I haven't tried setting food out for him yet and I'm nervous he'll turn his nose up and not eat but I'm trying to be optimistic and hope for the best. If not then I'll have to syringe baby food down his throat and I DON'T want to do that.
Ok, I'm off to snuggle with my fresh, clean and almost healthy puppers.

Early Morning Update

Great news! Quagmire is eating and drinking on his own without vomiting. He gets to come home this afternoon at 4pm. I'm SO excited to go pick him up!

Easter Weekend

Sad to say but Gary and I both pretty much forgot about Easter weekend. Quagmire spent Friday and most of Saturday hospitalized at his vet. They were however closed for Easter Sunday so they sent him home Saturday afternoon with all sorts of medicines we had to administer via shots under his skin as well as sub q fluids. We spent all Saturday evening and Sunday faithfully giving him his medicines. There was one he had to take orally which in my opinion was the worst one of all. He patiently took them all only fighting on the oral ones. He was allowed a few tablespoons of water every few hours and if he threw them up we had to wait 12 more hours to try again.
We were supposed to be feeding him small amounts of food but he had NO desire to eat at all so this morning we packed him back up and went to the vet for a re-check.
They decided that since he's still not eating and dehydrated that they wanted to keep him another 24 hours.
I spoke to his vet shortly after they closed. She said that he had only thrown up once early in the morning and that he was being spoon fed and although he didn't LIKE it per say he stopped fighting them.
Good news is that if he's eating and drinking by morning without vomiting Gary and I can bring him home and continue treatment at home.
She did mention that he was sneezing blood but that it had stopped by evening. She thinks his nasal cavities are just dried out from being dehydrated and all the medications that he is on.
Bad news? We have no idea how we're going to pay his vet bill in the morning.
So far we're up to $1360 and that's with the vet giving us a lot of freebies and a 10% military discount.
We owe them another $471 in the morning.
What we're asking for is lots of prayers for his health and that we can pull this off.

Since so many people have asked for this link I'm posting it here.
Love you guys!
Rachel

In a nutshell...

After this week I am totally exhausted and the only reason I'm finding the time or energy to do this is because Quagmire is back in the hospital.

Ok, so it's official. Quagmire has Pancreatitis which is a nasty name for a nasty disease.
He is by far out of the woods however our vet is closed over the weekend so we had to take him out of the hospital today. It's possible he goes back in Monday morning to be re-admitted.
Gary and I really appreciate all of the prayers and thoughts, we really do. We don't have children of our own so our pets are our babies and this has been a total nightmare, and like I said he's not out of the woods yet.
We get to spend the next 48 hours giving him fluids via a needle under his skin and shots every 12 hours since he is still not eating and not allowed to drink more than a tablespoon or so every 3 hours.
This really sucks.
THE GOOD news however is his valley fever results are back and it has dropped significantly with the new meds we put him on last month. (That's super great). Um.. my brain is fried right now and I'm having a hard time remembering everything. Thank God our vet typed EVERYTHING out for us including on his medicine bottles exactly when he gets what shot and when. She is an amazing person. She even gave us her home # in case there is a problem because Gary and I both feel uncomfortable with having to take him to the Emergency Animal Center (they're very weird and super overpriced).

So, that's that and of course I'll keep everyone updated.

Thank you so much guys.
We love you!
Rachel - Quagmire's mommy