Sleepless in Seattle

You'll have to pardon me if the post today lacks its usual luster. I have spent the last 2 nights getting up several times to let Raimi out since he is experiencing yet another run of what I believe is a cocci bacteria or something similar. He has a slightly more sensitive stomach than Leeloo (who has a stomach of iron - on her sickest day ever she'd still eat) which is why I think it often affects him first and sometimes not her. Cocci is just a nasty bug that gives them diarrhea and sometimes vomiting (but that's usually caused by an empty tummy - RRs tend to vomit when they get really hungry) but that doesn't make its appearance any less unwelcome, particularly when it affects my sleep pattern.

I came home on Wednesday evening to an absolute shit show and I am not kidding. The dogs had escaped their pen to get away from the explosive diarrhea Raimi had spread pretty much everywhere although he was kind enough to not get any at all on the dog beds. Things pretty much went downhill from there.

That night he had me up 4 or 5 times to let him out, once we didn't make it in time and I was cleaning up at the back door at 4am. I had to go out to run errands for about 3 hours during the day (I was off for American Thanksgiving since the client at work is US based) and came home to almost the same scene as Wednesday but with less volume. After I got home I was given the Big Sad Eyes about every hour or so and we rushed to the back door so he could go out. The backyard is an absolute disaster and  there is almost no way for the other dogs to avoid getting whatever bug he has.

Leeloo is showing signs of runny poop and now vomiting so I have now taken her off regular food and she will be on the same rice and milk diet Raimi is on. Raimi is less jazzed about the rice than the milk but he is not drinking water and if milk is what he wants to 'eat' fine by me. I water the milk down so he gets more water and since milk is a nice anti-acid it will calm his tummy (I need to get goat's milk since it's not pasteurized but last night we just made do with what we had) and I also need to stock up on more rice and yogurt to get their pro-biotics back on track.

This seems to happen every three months or so and I have been marking down what and when they get sick. This didn't happen in Calgary and has only started since we moved here, I am trying to think what might be causing it. We never ran into the amount of deer droppings Calgary that we do here and that might be the culprit. I can't think that eating deer poop is exactly good for them but there is no way to stop it short of not walking in the woods ... or anywhere. So it will be yet another few days of constant laundry, floor washing, and midnight stumbles to the back door ... the shining joy of owning dogs sometimes grows dim.