Help! We cannot get Dot to eat a thing! 

She is drinking water but just turns her head away from food (both bland and smelly, raw and cooked...) and rests it on her bed. She goes toward the offered food looking interested and then she just fades away from it, like she's disappointed. 

We had to try again with her antibiotics this evening, she had vomitted up this morning's dose. So we tried and tried to get some food in first. Nothing. In the end I stuck them down her throat and then popped some peanut butter (a little smear only) on her tongue to get some sort of digestion going. They stayed down for an hour but she just vomitted them up with the codeine pill that I just popped in her mouth with another tiny blob of peanut butter. There is literally nothing else I can get her to even consider and I'm now feeling desperate. 

I feel like we are stuck in a vicious circle.

She is comfortable in that she isn't whining or groaning, but I worry that she is still totally disinterested in walking anywhere and that the medication she needs is not getting into her. 

We see the vet at 9am tomorrow morning (it's 11.26 pm now).

Bummer that there's noone in chat, I'll check in during the night when I get up to do her massage.

Night.

Hi there, I had been working on a masterpiece of a reply but it timed out while I was away from the computer and *boink* I lost it.

So, the update.

After a solid night's rest Dotty woke up quite improved this morning. Dan and I took her out for a pee at 7am and she surprised us by hopping across the lawn afterwards with the obvious intention of disappearing under the deck! We held her back with the sling and managed to get her safely back inside before she could find another way of going to ground. We were so stoked to see her hopping about with such confidence. It was like it was all inside her just waiting for her to let it happen.

Her 9am vet visit was great, her bandage was changed and we could see the wound for the first time.  It's a very neat crescent shape that traces the bottom curve of a little saddlebag of muscle left on her hip. She is as itchy as hell from the glue in the bandage so we have hydrocortisone to put on the irritated skin and the cone of shame is in place to stop her attacking herself. She has had a long intimate relationship with the cone her whole life, so she's not too bummed by it. She has always been easily bothered by her butt (the tail is evil and needs to be punished) and gets itchy spots on her tummy if the groomers clip her too close.

We talked for ages about her nausea, we have dropped the clavaseptin antibiotic and she's had long acting antibiotic jab to compliment the Trichozole. She kept the Trichozole down and a couple of hours later she had her Metacam without any immediate vomitous results. If we have a return of the sicky tummy then we are going to look at an anti-nausea treatment, but at the moment we seem to be winning the battle.

The best news is she is drinking chicken broth! We withheld her water until she couldn't resist the broth any longer, felt mean but it made a lot of sense. She has also had a few small bits of a hamburger patty, yummy! So far so good.

The swelling is being addressed with icepacks (using gel packs and a chilled wheatbag that wraps around the swollen but and wound site). 

I wouldn't say she's "back" but she is hopping across the room to greet visitors and barking lustily when there's a knock at the door, all very encouraging signs that I wouldn't have dared to hope for last night. 

What a difference a day makes.

Thanks again, everyone, for all the loving support and calm words. It really makes a big difference to my confidence levels and lifts my spirits.

Victoria

Thanks for the kind words, so glad that Snoop is doing so well.

I have to confess, I'm knackered. Off to bed!