OOPS! Son Colin’s Dog Kona Was the Culprit All Along? Big Drama Ensues

November 26, 2023

Note: Third (and last!) post on the turkey bone mystery. See this and this.

Yesterday, very pleased that the turkey-bone-drama with dogs was over, I got a call from Marita, next door. Colin’s dog Kona, who Marita is taking care of, had had diarrhea, all over the floor of the room he uses to go outside, but the doggie door had been closed. “And thank goodness,” she said, on our way up to a 24 hour day/night Emergency Vet Care Center in Indianapolis (one hour 20 minutes away), that he didn’t go outside, because I wouldn’t have known about it.”

Not sure whether she checked the internet first, or whether she cleaned up the mess first, but in any case, she found out that yes, diarrhea can be a symptom of blocked intestines. Especially when he had earlier tried, and failed, to poop.

Of course we were both freaked. Especially me. Almost immediately, we hopped in the car, with Kona acting perfectly fine, no other symptoms, without anything but our purses with phones, and drove immediately up there, after first trying the newly established Urgent Vet Care Center here — CLOSED. We had been told that the wait list at the Emergency Vet Care was five hours, but needed to sign him in ASAP or it might be more.

Before driving out of the parking lot of the Urgent Care Center here, we wondered whether and if we should tell Colin, who, if you recall, is in a long-term recovery process from a doubly dissected aorta and is presently in a local care center, paralyzed, with extreme nerve pain. “That’s all he needs,” we told each other, “to worry about Kona!” But we decided we had to tell him, and did, first calling brother Sean, to tell him and warn him of the possible economic consequences, which he is in charge of during Colin’s convalescence. Of course worst case scenarios were on our minds: what if they have to operate? What if he’s got bones in so many places that they can’t even operate? Will we have to put him down? We hoped for the best case scenario, that with an abdominal X-ray  and a radiological interpretation, there will be no bones. But we sure didn’t expect it, especially after seeing the roaster emptied of the entire carcass, and knowing Kona is big enough to get the cover off.

By the time we arrived, the wait had increased to eight hours . . . We decided to get a motel room and simply stay until morning. It took awhile for them to check Kona in, and after they did we left, expecting them to call about 4 AM.

In the motel room, two hours later, beginning to relax in bed, a phone call: they had already examined him, X-rayed him and interpreted the X-ray! And he’s fine, the vet said. He has some tiny bone fragments at the bottom of his stomach, but they should pass through very well. The diarrhea? Well, that’s likely from the turkey leavings we had fed both dogs the day before. Colin had never fed his dog anything but dog food, so Kona was having trouble digesting it.

We decided to stay the night and pick him up at 6 AM. I got 4 hours sleep. Marita got a bit more. Home around 7:30. Utterly exhausted.

So both dogs DID get into the roaster, but neither one was harmed by whatever they took out of it. Is the carcass still floating around outdoors? Or did a raccoon finally get to it. In any case, Kona is no longer allowed out of the house alone, since if he left the carcass somewhere, he could still go back to it. Likewise Shadow. At least until we can surmise that wild animals have very likely taken care of it.

_____

I tell the story of this tiny hyperlocal drama here, ploughing through the whole thing as an example of what I, one person on this massively troubled planet, have been going through — physically, mentally, emotionally. I imagine just about everyone could tell a similar story — of actual danger, possible danger? danger averted? — plus large and unexpected monetary costs . . .

Time to sleep.

 

 

Did-Shadow-Eat-Turkey-Bones Drama/Trauma Appears Over

November 25, 2023

Note the caveat, “appears.” Not quite 48 hours yet. See below. 

Post-Thanksgiving Vigil, i.e., reverberating drama/trauma, over. SO OVER! I watched 15-year-old puppy Shadow closely all yesterday, with periodic checks on Kona as well. No signs of any kind of suffering or weirdness in either of them. This morning, to me, the clincher: on our daily 3-4 mile walk, Shadow dropped . . . not one, but two large poops, with no blood and nary a sliver of bone in either one.

More and more, we surmise that yes, a raccoon did get up on the back porch, ripped the roaster top off, dropped it nearby, and hauled away the entire turkey carcass except for that thigh bone that entered the house in Shadow’s mouth.

Late yesterday afternoon, son Sean called with grandkids Kiera (23) and Drew (21) visiting him in Colorado. Except for them telling me they went  for supermarket sushi on Thanksgiving day, the Shadow drama was just about all we talked about. Sean told me that he actually saw his dog Lily eat chicken bones one time, and immediately took her to an emergency vet, who took an X-ray and made her vomit. When he got home, within minutes the dog ate more chicken bones! So Sean turned right around and went back to the vet, who laughed when he saw them coming. Same protocol, the second time.

Kiera said she thinks hydrogen peroxide can be used to encourage vomiting, but she’s not sure. Need to look it up.

Then Sean said — of course, as is his wont (he was a coder for IBM until retiring two years ago) — let’s see what chatgtp says . . .

Well, the very first piece of AI advice was “Slow down, don’t panic.”

And the second piece of advice?  “Don’t induce vomiting.” Instead, it said to go to the vet and get an X-ray, etc. Just what Sean told me he did. I didn’t even think of doing that! Probably because I personally so rarely even think about, much less rely on western medicine, of which vet medicine is a subset.

Now I felt doubly guilty.  Now, not only did I absent-mindedly cause this entire drama, but I am avoiding what most people would do to deal with it!

Geez! “What time is it?” I ask myself. “Oops. It’s already 4:45 PM, and if my vet office is open, it will close in 15 minutes!!!” I could have called the vet, but was too restless to do so. Figuring I had just enough time to get Shadow in the car and drive there and speak to a vet in person, I hurriedly said goodbye to my advisors in Colorado and rushed out to drive east on 3rd street, about a mile to Smith Road, careened left around that corner, drove another 300 feet . . . to discover an utterly empty parking lot.

Okay. Now what?

By this time, my panic was beginning to subside. Just getting in the car and trying to do something had eased my doubly guilty conscience.

Drove home, searched internet for “emergency vet in or near Bloomington IN,” knowing that such an office has actually been established this year, to animal lovers’ relief. We no longer have to drive all the way to Indianapolis with a pet emergency in the car. Found the website. Left a written message. There’s no way to call them directly, though they asked for both my phone number and email. For the rest of the day I carried my phone around with me, and kept looking on email, but . . . no response of either kind.

By this time my panic had almost completely subsided. Chatgtp had counseled to watch out for “24 to 48 hours.” I figured if Shadow could get through 24 hours with no symptoms of any kind, we’re likely home free.

That happened.

Then this morning, the final test: would he poop on our usual morning walk? Would he be able to poop? If so, would there be something strange in the poop? As I said above, he passed the test.

What strikes me about this short, scary adventure is just how unbalanced I became when attempting to deal with the possibility that my dog might have swallowed bones, or bone slivers. Which reminds me of what else happened this morning:

I decided to check out Bloomington’s Christmas market for local arts and crafts. At one point saw a very familiar profile, but with a hat that covered most of his head. Who is it? Ah yes, it’s a young man who used to live here in Green Acres Permaculture Village, but just a few months ago moved into a new 12-person co-op, extremely cheap living, where everybody has their own (tiny) room and they decide on, purchase, make, and eat all meals together. Much more collectivist than this place, which focuses on continuous dynamic balancing of the opposites: individualism and community.

He responded, wistfully: “Oh, it’s okay . . . But they seem preoccupied with geopolitical concerns a lot more than other people.” I chimed in: “That’s because young people in your generation are not rooted in. And I don’t blame them! How could they be rooted in [when nobody that age is done with college loans or can afford to buy a home, start a family]? I didn’t mention what I bracketed here, but knew I could assume with him, a bright light in his generation, that he knew what I was thinking. So I just said, “The result is that they remain rootless and unbalanced. So the antidote is to ground yourself, center yourself, come into balance. Maybe you can help them do the same?”

He nodded his head, serious, considering. Yes.

Internally I also nodded my head. Yes, me too, I thought to myself. Despite being in the now fading generation where owning one’s own home was expected, so rooted in that way, my actual corporeal self goes out of balance way too easily, like with yesterday’s “did Shadow eat bones?” drama.

Okay Ann. Ground, center, balance! Your two hours of “physical culture” daily are absolutely essential if you wish to maintain your own well-being, and radiate serenity into our increasingly troubled world.

Morning walk done; time for afternoon yoga, chikung, taichi!