Poop patrol

Praise the Maker there are NOT photos to accompany this post. Even without photos, it may not be for the weak of heart. You’ve been warned. But hey, you’re dog people and dog people can talk about bloody diarrhea and projectile vomiting while eating dinner at a five-star restaurant. So read on.

Last week, Connor had a spell of bad poop (i.e., the squirts) that didn’t resolve itself so off we went to the vet. She asked if I’d brought in a sample. Since I didn’t want to support Murphy’s Law (again) by trying to catch liquid diarrhea in a baggie, the answer was no. The vet gave me one of those “What kind of a pet owner are you?’ looks. Since Connor was firing off a blast almost every time he went outside, I almost suggested she take him out to a grassy spot and have a go at it herself but kept my mouth shut. Discretion is the better part of valor and I’m learning that as I get older.

The bottom line (no pun intended) was that Connor had a bacterial infection and we went home with a week of antibiotics. Here’s the irony of that situation: the medicine that is supposed to get rid of the nasties causing the loose stools and diarrhea, can cause loose stools and diarrhea. Things are getting better but Connor is taking a rather round-about route to normalcy.

Connor also was not eating. Sound the alarm bells, a sheltie not eating! This caused me more concern than the bad poop. Anyway, the vet sent me home with a couple cans of allegedly yummy food to tempt Connor to eat. Connor did not find it to his liking but Phoenix liked it just fine. I did not intentionally feed it to Phoenix but, well, these things happen. With a malinois, they seem to happen more often than not. Lord help me.

While doing yard pickup later that day, I noticed little white things in Phoenix’s afternoon deposit. At first, I thought it was rice from the can of food he ate. For heaven’s sake, I thought, why do they even bother putting rice in dog food if dogs can’t digest it any better than that? Then I realized the rice was wiggling. (Told you. You’d been warned.)

YUCK! GROSS! GAG!

Phoenix had a raging case of tapeworms. How did this happen?! It’s been ages since any of my dogs had worms. For years and years, I routinely trotted into the vet’s office every year with fecal samples and for years and years, they consistently tested negative for every parasite that ever occupied the inside of a dog. Finally, the vet told me not to bother unless I saw something suspicious. This was definitely suspicious. But where did he get them? It’s not like the poor creature is flea-infested or routinely catches and eats wild rabbits.

The other two dogs didn’t show signs of anything abnormal, except Connor’s poop was now orange. I decided as long as it was something resembling solid, I didn’t care what color it was. I figured I’d better take in samples from everyone. Hey, the vet wanted poop. Now she was going to get it in triplicate.

The next morning found me trotting around the yard behind all three dogs, baggies in hand, while they took their morning sabatical. Connor cooperated by making a fairly solid deposit. No spooning required. Phoenix again produced a bumper crop of little white not-rice segments adorning his deposit. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Jamie showed no indication of producing anything but my begging and pleading finally yielded results.

On the way to work, I swung by the vet’s office and started off their morning with 3 little bags of poop. (Seriously, and I thought MY job was bad some days. At least no one brings bags of dog poop into the office in the course of routine business.)

The vet thought Phoenix had probably contracted the tapeworms by eating bunny pellets. She sent me home with a dose of Drontal for each dog. Dang, those were some expensive bunny pellets. Hope they enjoyed them.