The Diarrhea Chronicles - Volume 2

Longtime readers may recall a post I wrote several months ago chronicling my dog's intense and explosive diarrhea.

Well, the diarrhea has returned. But this time, I'm not simply pregnant getting up at all hours of the night to walk around in the snow so Sophie can pee out of her butt (yes, that's what it looks like); I'm the sleep-deprived mother of a breastfed two-month-old infant AND I'm getting up at all hours of the night to walk around in the snow, etc. On top of all that, Jake and I both have the flu or something flu-esque. It's on the decline, but getting no more than an hour at a time of sleep at night isn't going to help any.

Jake gets up sometimes to take her out, but he doesn't even hear her pathetic little poo-cry in the middle of the night, and I do. The only time I wake him up to let her out is if she happens to whine when I'm feeding Camille. I can't exactly tell Camille to hold on for a minute, mommy has to take the dog out to crap. And Sophie is potty trained, but we all know that no matter how powerful your sphincter is, diarrhea bad enough can overcome. She can hold it for a good long time, but will eventually reach a bursting point. I'd rather not have to scrub that burst up off the carpet, so I wake Jake up and he takes her out.

To top it off, this round of diarrhea is accompanied by vomiting. The cure for the diarrhea last time was a week's worth of antibiotics from the vet and a change to medicated sensitive-tummy dog food. She's still eating the medicated stuff, and has diarrhea anyway. I don't know how much more medicated we can get before she's just eating a handful of pills for breakfast. I made an appointment with the vet for tomorrow (I needed to go get more heartworm medication, anyway), but I don't know what to hope for this time.

We determined last time that Sophie's intestinal upsets had been triggered by the drive from Florida to Utah in January. The stress of the move caused diarrhea, and she got a bout of bad bacteria in her gut, which caused further diarrhea beyond the stress-caused kind. The antibiotics fixed the bad bacteria, some probiotics helped good bacteria grow back, and the switch to gentler dog food helped her sensitive tummy resist future bad bacteria outbreaks. It was all fine for a while, too, but now... Now, I have to let her out every 2-3 hours or she'll poop on the floor (twice, and right next to the Christmas tree).

I suspect that her diarrhea is stress-induced once more, and that the stress-causing agent is Camille.

Dun dun DUNNNNN

Unfortunately for Sophie, I can't get rid of her stressor this time. Also unfortunately for Sophie, I can't afford to keep taking her to the vet. I also can't keep waking up at night (more than I already am) and taking her out to poop. I can keep cleaning poo off the carpet, but I choose not to.

The vet will probably give us the same antibiotics as last time, and I hope they work. If the pills don't work, Sophie is doomed to a life of diaper-wearing.

The Diarrhea Chronicles - Volume 1

Not MY diarrhea... the dog's diarrhea.

I'm currently pregnant with my first human baby, but I've had a fur-baby for a little over three years now.

Her name is Sophie. She's a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. I got her from a breeder in the UK when she was 8 weeks old, and she just turned 3 in March. She's a generally well-behaved dog; a little whiny, but apparently, that's a Staffy thing that they all do.

So anyway, I'm posting about Sophie because ever since I moved to SLC, she's had horrible, chronic, explosive diarrhea. It. Is. Awful. She's always had a sensitive tummy, and I kept it under control by always feeding her the same food and the same treats. She's not allowed to have people-food. The only thing she's allowed to ingest that is not her pre-approved dog food/treats is grass. She's a grazer. She doesn't eat grass when she feels sick, she eats it because she likes the way it tastes, or something. I don't know. She's weird.

Diarrhea. I figured she was having intestinal upsets at first because she was adjusting to the move. I mean, we drove across the country in less than a week. I can't blame her for being a little upset, mostly because she suffers from carsickness. She's better now, but she used to throw up if she even saw an open car door. She's endured a couple of semi-cross-country drives in her three years of life, though (as well as a transatlantic flight from London to Tampa, FL), so she's learning to cope.

Well, Jake and I moved into our apartment at the beginning of March, and Sophie has had several diarrheapalooza nights since then. And guess who gets to get up and let her out?! Yep. Me. She sleeps in a kennel at night (her "house," as in, "Sophie, go to your house," and in she goes), and the kennel is downstairs in the living room. At 2am, when she needs to poo viciously all over the lawn, she will bark and whine. Jake doesn't even wake up, but I can hear ONE of her poo-cries, and I'm wide awake.

So I will get up and take her out. And she'll crap herself silly and immediately become happy. Inside we go, and she goes back in her house, and I go back to bed.

An hour and a half later, more poo-cries. So I get up, let her out to shit, bring her back in, go back to bed.

An hour and a half after that... poo-cries. Repeat. All. Night.

I'll do it all night, too, because I love this dog. I mean, come on, how could someone NOT love this face?

I don't know, but I sure do.

She's really lucky that I love her as much as I do, or I would have thrown her out the window a long time ago.

Twice now, she's had diarrhea during the day while I'm at school. Inside her house. All over her bed. So when I get home all tired and ready to just sit down and take a load off, I instead am hit with a bitchslap of dog poop odor as soon as I open the door, and I have to spend the next hour or so cleaning the kennel, the bed, and the dog herself.

I had to do all this yesterday, and I still have the scent of feces in my nose.

However, as bad as it is for me, I'm sure it's worse for her. I mean, chances are, if you're reading this blog, you've experienced explosive (or near-explosive) diarrhea in your life. I think the diarrhea is worse for the person who has it shooting out of their butt than it is for the person standing nearby. So I started thinking that maybe - just maybe - Sophie's diarrhea isn't being caused by post-moving anxiety.

While I was scraping dookers off of her kennel, Jake called a nearby vet and made an appointment for today at 2:45. The vet is within walking distance, so around 2:15 or so, Sophie and I are going to trot on down to the vet and have her butt swabbed.

Now, Sophie loves walks. And she loves the vet. But I don't think she loves butt swabs. Two outta three ain't bad, though.

I don't know what I want or expect from the vet. OK, no, wait, I know what I expect. I expect them to give me probiotics to add to her food, and I expect them to not take me seriously when I say I've already been prescribed probiotics by a vet in Augusta and said probiotics didn't work. I expect to take their dumb probiotics anyway, and try them anyway, even though I know they're not going to work.

I'm really afraid that they're going to do a butt swab and discover that she has some kind of horrible intestinal condition that will require surgery and therefore a buttload (GET IT?!) of money to fix. Or, I'm afraid there will be some kind of intestinal condition that has no fix at all, and I will be condemned to mop up dog diarrhea for the next 10 years.

So yeah, I am filled with trepidation. And for those of you who are like, "Cleaning up dog shit is just practice for cleaning up baby shit later!" I say to you... Fuck You. Not the same thing.