Three or four weeks ago, one of our very good friends was in town for a quick visit. Among the topics of discussion was an experience she had the previous week while dog sitting. To make a long story short, her friend was out of town, the dog suffered a catastrophic injury, my friend was unable to reach her friend (who was out of the country) and had to make the terrible decision to put the dog to sleep. Worst nightmare, right?
This was right before we embarked on our 3 week dog sitting adventure with Quincy, whose Dad was taking a trip overseas. After hearing this story, there was much crossing of fingers and knocking on wood. While we are always more than happy to take care of our friends' pets, the worry of medical emergencies was foremost in our mind when Q's dad dropped him off. Quincy's an old guy. Happy, cancer-free (he lost one of his hind legs to cancer several years back) and other than being old, is in good health and great spirits. But three weeks is a long time with a great dog who is undoubtedly in his twilight years.
Fast forward to last Sunday. Q has been with us for 2 weeks at this point and while he's chilling out & warming up to my dogs, he is exhausted that particular morning. He won't get up. I think this is probably somewhat normal old 3-legged dog behavior who's spent the last 2 weeks moving around a lot more than normal in order to boss my trio around. But I'm terrified when he turns up his nose at his kibble. Q is nothing if not enthusiastic about food, especially for an old guy. I help him outside to relieve himself, encourage him to drink a bit of water and pull out one of my many getting a dog to eat tricks: Honest Kitchen. He eagerly laps it up, while still laying on his bed. Kibble is still a no go until I figure out that eating from my hand makes it so much yummier and pretty soon he's finished his breakfast. By mid-afternoon, Quincy was back to his normal self if hopping around with just a little less energy. But he's himself enough to lick the side of the Monkey Bread we break out for dessert at our BBQ that evening. In fact, he beat Hurley to licking/stealing any food. Quincy's OK and I sigh with relief.
Until Wednesday morning. When I get out of bed, Quincy's not moving. He won't eat. No kibble. No canned. No Honest Kitchen. No eating from my hands. I help him outside. No doing his business. I help him back to his bed & officially start freaking the f*** out.
My only comfort is that Q's dad will be back the next day so I let him know that Q isn't feeling well and ask to schedule his pickup. Crap! I totally got his return date wrong and he won't be back until Saturday. This is not good.
At this point, I'm trying to balance that tendency-to-overreact o' mine with an over abundance of caution. It's so difficult to make decisions or even help a friend make their decisions remotely. I don't know how much of this is Quincy being super worn out in a bit of pain versus seriously ill and I have no history with him to guide me.
I stop home mid-afternoon to check up on him. He hasn't touched the food, won't get up and now he's got a goopey eye. Triple f***!!! I had spent the entire morning telling myself he was going to be fine. Going to be his normal self when I checked on him. He wasn't.
Quincy's dad and I decided to go ahead and make an appointment for today. Q's only slurping liquids this morning but there's a lot of nutrition I can pack in a slurpy mess: chicken broth, greek yogurt, pumpkin, and more Honest Kitchen. So long as it's slurpy and not solid, he'll at least eat a little of it. And as he has done since his dad dropped him off, his tail is still wagging every time I talk to him. It can't be that bad, right?
Please keep Quincy in your thoughts today and maybe do some finger-crossing for us, K? I'm super worried about this guy.
