Archives for November 2007

As I was saying at the end of my last post about our new puppy, we discovered on Saturday that our little bundle of energy was sick.

I’d noticed on the drive home that our pups nose was dry. As we drove home I asked Chris if her nose had been wet when we saw her in the barn while she was in the pen with the other pups and as I thought it had been. As it turns out her nose is dry sometimes and wet at others.

She’s been active and doesn’t really act sick, but as I said in my last post she was pooping a lot all day Saturday and passing pine shavings in her stool and when she finally started having watery diarrhea that I noticed had blood streaks we immediately called a vet and talked them into letting us bring her in that day.

Since the puppy had passed so much stool on Saturday we had some samples to bring with us to the vets office. The vet immediately collected a sample to test while we were in the office and then he came in to examine the pup.

He said she was full of gas and of course the immediate concern was whether she still had pine shavings in her bowels and whether she might have a bowel obstruction. She hadn’t been vomiting or retching but we had noticed from the time we got her home in the early morning hours that after she’d have a drink or eat her stomach and abdomen would heave and move around as if she were having hiccups.

She never seemed to be in obvious discomfort when her stomach was twitching, but I did notice over the weekend that she didn’t like her stomach, hind legs or behind touched when her abdomen was making those odd movements. Perhaps it was gas moving around or the bulky pine shaving filled stool moving around …

Overall the pup seems to be in good health. She’s a good weight for her age. Oh and she wasn’t born on September 7th as I was told. The paperwork I was given states that she was born August 25th and she’s only had one set of shots so far … in early October. She should have had at least two sets of shots by now if not all three sets!

When the vet was finished examining the pup he went back to see if the stool test was finished. It was finished and he said that he could see a lot of bacteria. So our pup is on meds! She got two injections while in the vets office. One was antibiotics and the other was a medication that would sooth her stomach and bowels – something like Prevacid.

So she’s now on three medications. Two for the stomach and bowels – to coat and sooth them (Sulcrate and Cimetidine), and one is an antibiotic (Tylocine). She gets them before and with meals and she takes her medication really well.

She’s also on a different food that’s easier on her stomach for now too. It’s called Medi Cal Gastro Formula and she loves it. It’s canned food. The first time we fed it to her it was room temperature and it stuck to the roof her her mouth. Now we serve it cold, just out of the fridge, and I chop it up into tiny pieces so it will go down easier without getting stuck to the roof of her mouth. I actually had to get my hand in her mouth to break up the build up of food stuck in there on Saturday. We though she was going to choke!

Since puppy seemed to be doing ok after the vet visit we decided to go right to Petsmart (we had the pup in a shoulder bag) and get a training crate. It was a quick trip but we still managed to pick up two more toys for the girl. She’s got 6 toys now!

The medications seem to be working. Her tummy hasn’t done that heaving hiccup like movement since maybe noon on Sunday and he stool is less frequent. Oh and the pills seem to be puppy happy pills because she gets super active after we give them to her. It’s probably because the meds make her feel better I guess.

Other than getting her used to her crate, which she’s done really well in, we haven’t had much luck in the training department. That’s probably because her stool is a bit more frequent than it should be thanks to her bacterial infection.

We bought puppy training pads but to a puppy that wants to chew everything they are just one more toy to play with! She did go pee on one of the pads for the first time today though so there’s hope that it might work. I think for the most part though I’ll try to take her outside every two hours during the day and get her used to doing her business outside if at all possible.

She’s quite the ball of energy and since labs are orally fixated everything that she can wrap her mouth around is fair game! My hands are her number one chew toy or at least she thinks they are. So are my pant legs. She doesn’t chew on Chris anywhere near as much as she does me. I think she likes the smell or taste of the hand soap that I’ve been washing my hands with so frequently.

If anyone has any tips on how to get her to stop chewing on my hands I’d appreciate some help!

The words NO, Sit, and Stay away or Leave alone have been used frequently, but have little effect so far!

I bought two books to help with training, but I haven’t had much of a chance to read them yet! I got a copy of Puppies for Dummies and The Fancy Pets publication Training Secrets for Labrador Retrievers (vol 7). I’ve read two chapters of Training Secrets and hope to read a bit more later today.

Just to be able to write a couple of blog posts I put the puppy in her crate. It’s nice to have a little bit of peace and quite for a few moments. She’s being really good in her crate. She can see me from where she is and she’s lying on her doggy bed, which is full of toys, watching me as I type.

Time to go outside again I think!

As usual if anyone has any puppy training tips for me I’d appreciate it.

Update: I actually wrote out this post on Monday but due to being busy with Midnight and suffering from a cold I think I didn’t get around to posting this until today. Midnight is doing better health wise. She’ll be on antibiotics and the other meds for a few more days. Her nose is wet most of the time now.

She’s starting to get the idea of what the puppy training pads are for and we’ve also been going outside frequently – like every hour or two! Maybe the accidents will get fewer and farther between soon.

The hand chewing is still going on. I really need some tips as to how to get her to stop chewing my hands. She’s starting to puncture the skin quite frequently. A groomer at Petsmart put me onto lightly pushing my thumb under her tongue to make her let go and that works (and doesn’t seem to hurt her) but she still thinks my hands are the best toys around.