One sick puppy

Bogart is sick, and I mean really sick, like in a ruin your carpet at six a.m., three p.m., and seven p.m. kind of way. Yeah, he did all that this past Thursday, and it was all in the living room of our small seven hundred square foot apartment. We went through two rolls of paper towels, three or more bottles of soapy water, and all of the sanity that we had - including what was in reserve. We made a vet appointment for him about six days ago when we noticed tape worms in his business, but because he was a new patient they scheduled the appointment for next Saturday; that's a lot of shit in our apartment.

It all began with me almost being late for work because, after walking him for 15 minutes outside, he came in the house and had liquid diarrhea in several places. I woke Chris up, and we spent the next twenty minutes on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor Cinderella style. When it was all finished we had soaked half of our living room with soapy water, and I had ten minutes to eat breakfast, get dressed, make my lunch and leave for work. I made it on time and I'm still not sure how!

Everything went well at work, and then half way home (I work 15 minutes from my apartment) Chris called and said to meet him at the vet's office. We'd never been to that vet so, although I knew that it was on a side street, I didn't know which one. I came home grabbed Chris and Bogart and drove to the vet, luckily without any incidents in the car - Bogart pooped in my car once, not fun. After 15 minutes of filling out paperwork we were called to an exam room. Bogart did much better than he does when he goes to see the vet who did his knee surgery. There is one particular woman at the office that must have done something really terrible to him because he always pees when she gets within two feet of him. This time he relaxed a lot more until he broke the thermometer that they had put in a not-so-pleasant place. They tried to take a sample to test for the worms but all they got were a few drops. The sample was enough to tell them that he has Coxidia though. That is a nasty parasite about as big as an amoeba that resides in the intestines and causes the same effects as worms - GROSS! Hence my poor puppy's dilemma.

The vet, Dr. Keene (who is AWESOME by the way) immediately asked if we had Bogart on a flea preventative. We both said "Yes, and it doesn't work!!" We've had a flea infestation for about two months, and when the damn bugs started biting me a week ago I gave up all hope of ever getting rid of them. You're supposed to put the topical treatments on dogs once a month, we've been doing it biweekly and it only seems to make the fleas multiply. Apparently, Bogart gets worms when he eats the fleas that carry the eggs which is very frequently since he bites at them because he can't really scratch very well. So, that explained the worms but what about that coxidia, amoeba thingy? That, we were told, comes from eating cat poop, something Bogart has ample opportunity to do.

There is a lady who lives two doors down from us, and she is the epitome of a "cat lady." She leaves her kitchen window open for the four or five stray cats that live outside our building. She feeds them, but she doesn't give them shots, flea collars, or a litter box which means that they all go outside. Bogart's favorite snack is a little dried pile left by one of the cats. It's everywhere and there is no getting away from it - so enters coxidia. We told the vet our dilemma, and he said, "If he eats it, he'll get it," great.

Once we had finished discussing Bogart's current illnesses, Dr. Keene did an annual exam and everything looks good, all intestinal creatures aside. When it was all said and done we had an antibiotic for the coxidia that we have to give Bogart for the next week, one really large deworming pill, and some special W-D dog food that was supposed to make his business not soak into our carpet anymore. We also went ahead and got him back on HeartGuard for heartworms since he had only been off of it for about a month and a half. Lastly we bought a six month supply of the God-send, Comfortis.

A few years ago a pill came out that vets could give to dogs with serious flea infestations. The pill lasted 24 hours and started working 30 minutes after ingestion. The pill would kill every flea currently on the dog or that got on the dog for those 24 hours, and it killed them before they could lay eggs. Comfortis does the exact same thing only it lasts for an entire month. Apparently fleas have become immune to ALL topical treatments, and since Comfortis has only been out about a year, it works wonders.

In addition to all of the other medications, Dr. Keene also recommended that we put Bogart on daily Gluclosamine tablets since he had double knee surgery last May. Chris and I are going to do that, but we're going to get the tablets from PetSmart, although for the record the technician gave Bogart a Zoom tablet to try for the Gluclosamine and he loved it. When it was finally all over we left the vet with a $255.83 vet bill...and it was worth every cent.

In the past two days Bogart has regained his energy, his solidity, and his house-breaking abilities. I was away for most of the day working on a group project for class, but Chris said that Bogart pooped three times today, and he barked to go out every single time!! Now that's my Bogie! And so it seems that the rescue dog with two bum legs who it seemed couldn't be trained is in fact house-broken, but he's just had worms so bad that he's had no control. Thanks to Comfortis the fleas are on their way out though which should mean no more worms and no more poop in my house.

My aunt lent us her carpet shampooer (pardon the nasty pun) yesterday, and while I was doing group work Chris was an awesome boyfriend (as always) and cleaned all of our carpet. Tonight was the first time I've come home in three days and not smelled dog stuff when I opened the door; it was wonderful. Bogart is close to 100% again, and we finally have a vet who is ten minutes away, extremely thorough, and more than reasonably priced. I have no complaints. Things are looking up, and we are all a lot happier with a healthy Bogart.

I know that this post has been long and disgusting at times, but please don't ever let anything written here deter you from adopting a dog from a rescue or a shelter. Rescue dogs are a handful because they come with so much baggage that you know about and even more that you don't know about. They do strange things like throw up at your family's house the first week you have them because you leave them with family for a few hours, and they think that you're leaving them for good...again. It takes about a month for the trust to appear but once it does you have the most loyal friend you could imagine. For all the headaches, sleepless nights, floor scrubbing, and vet bills that Bogart has cost us, he is a wonderful dog, and to have him come running to the door with his strange gate and bow legs is something that I wouldn't give up for the world.

He was a damaged, fairly immobile dog when we first got him in August, but after three months of practice and a lot of TLC he has become an energetic puppy on a road to recovery that is getting shorter every day. He walks everywhere now, and yesterday when I got home from picking up the shampooer I saw two brown blurs streak across the dog park next to my building. As I pulled in I thought to myself, "I wish Bogart could run like that." When I went inside I noticed that Chris and Bogart were both gone. I waited for five minutes thinking that they had gone for a walk, but when they didn't come back I went looking for them. And I found them...at the dog park with Chris talking to one of our neighbors, Cecilia, and I found Bogart streaking around the park in a blur chasing Zoe, the neighboring Plott Hound who looks almost exactly like him. He was the dog that I had envied when I drove in. He was the happy puppy that the sad dog "Crash" had become - he was my beloved Bogart - healthy, happy, running Bogart. How I love my new best friend.