One Sick Puppy

 Last Wednesday morning I went to get Chunk out of his crate and found that he had been sick in the night. This has never happened before, however Chunky had run off the night before and was missing for ten minutes so I assumed he ate something he shouldn't.  I made him rice for breakfast and went off to work.  Turns out he wouldn't eat the rice and continued to get sick through out the day.  By late Wednesday night he wasn't even keeping water down.  I brought him to the the vet where they started him on an iv and took x-rays. Unfortunately Chunk has been know to be the type of dog that will eat anything. Really, we've caught him with fabric, Legos, paperclips, coins, buttons, stuffing from toys and more. The x-rays weren't definitive so the vets ran other tests to figure out what was wrong with him. He started to respond to the medicines so we thought he'd be coming home when he took turn for the worse. In the end he had to have abdominal surgery on Monday.

This is what the vet found in his intestines . . . a mini beanie baby aardvark toy with the end of the tail ripped open and no beans or stuffing in it.  He had swallowed the fabric skin whole! No wonder he was so sick.  Needless to say while Chunky was still on his extended vet stay we cleaned out his toys and got rid of all  his little babies and fabric toys.

Chunky came home on Tuesday afternoon and seems to be feeling a little better everyday.  Last night he was zooming around the house and wanted to play fetch with me, a sure sign he's feeling better. It's kind of funny but when he's sick his tail uncurls, that's a sure sign that something is wrong because normally his tail is curled up tight. Thankfully he's back to having a curly tail again so he's feeling better. It's nice to have him home.  We missed him while he was gone. Right now he's asleep between my feet snoring softly as I type, it's a good sound to hear again.

I'd like to say he's learned his lesson regarding eating foreign objects but in his first day home he tried to eat two fabric scraps, a band aid and a button.  Oh Chunky, let's not do that again!!