On Easter Sunday (April 4) I decided to give Olive a treat
for Easter. Someone had given us a chew stick for dogs which I gave her at
lunch time. Later that evening I opened a package of lamb flavored treats and
gave Olive a few with her supper (they were very small).
The next morning Olive was very low energy and did not want
to eat her breakfast. She did not want to play Frisbee or even go for a walk.
That is very unlike her, as she has always been a high energy dog. When she
showed no improvement by noon and still hadn’t eaten anything I called the vet
and made an appointment for that evening. She finally did eat around 3 p.m.,
but was still low energy. The vet checked her digestive system for any
obstructions, but found nothing. Thinking that it might have been the chew
stick, I was told to monitor the situation and call back if there was no
improvement. Perhaps if it was something she ate it would pass through her in a
few days.
Olive seemed to eat well over the next week and on the
following Sunday seemed to perk up a bit. She seemed to improve little by
little after that, but I was concerned that she did not seem to be interested
in going out back to play Frisbee, which had always been one of her favorite
things. I resolved to call the vet again the following Monday. That seemed even
more imperative Monday morning. I had given her one of the lamb treats Sunday
night, figuring that they were so small one could not do any harm. Monday morning,
she was back to where she had been the previous Monday, not eating and very low
energy. There was some improvement as the morning went on, but I made a vet appointment for Thursday (the first opening they had).
On Wednesday afternoon Olive suddenly came alive. I started
to take her out for what I thought would be a leisurely walk, when she suddenly
started to pull me to the back of my house where we play Frisbee. I let her
lead me there where she grabbed the Frisbee and ran around the yard with it. I
gave her a few tosses which she caught (something she hadn’t done since
Easter). A neighbor who has a dog named Donner about Olive’s size who gets
along well with Olive came by, and the two started playing together. It looked
as if they were getting a good workout until, not wanting Olive to overdo it
right away, I ordered Olive back in the house and she obeyed. Since then, Olive
seems to be pretty much back to normal (whew!)
I kept the vet appointment. The vet took a blood sample and
a few x-rays. Everything looked normal. I am waiting for one test result, but
it looks as if we may never know what was causing the problem. I brought the
wrapper from the chew stick and the package of lamb treats. The vet saw nothing
obvious in the ingredients, but cautioned that dogs could have sensitivities to
ingredients, just as humans can be sensitive to gluten or other normally benign
ingredients. I discarded the lamb treats and resolved not to give her any treats
or chew sticks from Wal Mart ever again.
I am just glad to see Olive back to her old self.
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This is a short posting because little has been happening
with the Covid pandemic still happening, though hope for an end has never been
higher. To me, online festivals and events are a poor substitute for actually
being at a gathering and interacting with others.
To end, here is something I cam across on the internet
recently. To border collie people, and I suppose to dog people in general, this
is very relatable. To non-dog people, it’s a dog person thing. 😉
