This will be the last of the Let’s Talk About Poop Baby series, and my apologies in the form of “neener, neener” to those who thought the previous entry was the end of this poopapalooza because I covered all my pets. If you’re wondering if this one is about MY poopage, you can relax. It’s not.
Both Brandy and Foster suffered from coprophagia a few years ago – they would search for dog poop and eat it. Brandy was an occasional snacker but Foster had an especially bad case, where he would finish pooping and turn around to chomp on it. A lot of times he would forget about chomping part for a few seconds because he’s too eager to get back to pestering Brandy without wasting a nanosecond. So I would strive to get to his poopage within that time, but Foster would hurry back to it racing with me to get there before me, the race, of course, he won half the time. Only half the time because the other half of the time I managed to get there before he finished pooping. I’ve tried all kinds of different products out there to stop this as well as other things recommended by the vet and others to no avail. I don’t have any pictures of any of them eating poop because are you kidding? I was busy getting there to stop them.
Fortunately, this disgusting habit discontinued within a couple of days of their diet change to RMB diet. Still, after successfully attacking Foster getting out of his pooping stance, Brandy habitually runs and smells Foster’s poop, cause you just HAVE TO smell the fresh poop every time it’s produced. Then she looks at me and waits until I get near the poopage as if she’s making sure I know where the poop is situated, then trots off. She does this whenever she finds some poop that I missed because somebody pulled a sneak-a-poop routine where they sneak in their business while I occupy myself with scooping another’s poop or obsessing with rabbit poo search or just spacing out. I use this habit of Brandy’s to my advantage when I can’t find the poopage in the dark or in the fall where there are a lot of leaves on the ground to camouflage the poopage: I’d see somebody pooping, and by the time I walk over to that area, that said somebody’s already licking herself somewhere else, and I’d fail to find the poopage. When that happens, I call to Brandy to that area and say “Find the poop!” And most of the time, she starts sniffing and finds it, and looks up at me, at which time I praise her lavishly. I should train her harder to be the poop search dog or something. I wonder if there’s any need for such a dog?
This concludes Let’s Talk About Poop Baby series. No doubt poop will be mentioned in other posts in the future, and I hope now you’ll have the visuals to go with the future poop discussions. I’ve enjoyed immense satisfaction writing this series except maybe the one about Georgia’s poopage. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
Now that I’ve chronicled the pooping process of each of my dogs, I suppose I should do the same for Grizzley’s pooping habits. Unfortunately, as much as Grizzley insists on acting like a dog, not ANY dog, but the top dog, the fact remains that he hasn’t morphed into a dog yet. As a result, he still uses the litter boxes with covers that are placed in “his” room safely out of the reach of the kitty-nugget-loving dogs, so I cannot observe his pooping process as closely. I only know that 1) half the time he doesn’t cover up his poo, 2) he likes to jump in right after I clean the box and waits patiently while I scoop, 3) his favorite litter box out of the three to poop in is the one closest to the door.
The consistency of his poop is that of a rock. The smell is minimal as well, and most of the time there is no smell. If you are surprised at the consistency and the smell of Grizzley’s poop because maybe the ungodly poopage of every cat you’ve ever had stinks to high heavens, then I suggest changing their diet to higher quality canned food with little or no grains, or better yet, to RMB diet if your cat will eat it.
Sadly, I know for a fact that I don’t have a picture of Grizzley pooping, and I hate to disappoint, but none will be forthcoming. Sorry.
Today concluded this spring’s round of heartworm tests and wellness checkups for my beasts at last with Brooklyn’s visit to the vet. Brooklyn being Brooklyn, I had to ask numerous times to contain the two resident Rotties and the resident cats, all of whom tried their very best to escape the back room every chance they got. I have to admit it must have been a sight to behold whenever I saw any of them approaching since I turned to face Brooklyn to block her, bending my knees and back in preparation to body block and bear hug her in time if and when she decides to lunge. Picturing myself in that posture would have been funny if I looked fit and slim active type, but it’s absolutely hysterical to picture me the way I am – fat and short couch potato type.
I asked Dr. L to check if Brooklyn broke her teeth, and my suspicion was confirmed. Both of her upper back premolars were broken, but fortunately not enough to expose the nerves. There is nothing we could do about it. I might actually have to start brushing her teeth! I also took home a bottle each of Rimadyl and Methocarbamol to give Brooklyn when her pinched nerve acts up. One good news. She weighed at 54.5lb, which is 1.5lb lighter than 3 months ago. Finally she’s on her way back to her lean and mean self at 47lb, as opposed to being just mean.
I have another appointment to bring Brandy in again in 2 weeks, this time to draw blood for some other tests, especially pancreatic deficiency, to determine why her poop continues to be soft after finishing 10 days of metronidazol. Adding rice and yogurt to her diet did help a tad, but nothing to write home about. I procured a bottle of apple cider vinegar as well some time ago, but yet to crack it open, the reason being that yogurt is supposed to replenish the good bacteria in her system. Adding to it apple cider vinegar, which is supposed to kill excess bacteria in her system, sounds illogical and doesn’t compute at all. So I will continue to give her yogurt for another week or so to use up the yogurt I already have in the fridge, then if her poop consistency is still not satisfactory, I’ll try the apple cider vinegar. I’m pulling my hair out to see if THAT might help to keep weight on her. She’s 15lb lighter than a year ago.
Grizzley will now be on prednisone once a day for a month or so, and we’ll see how he does. If he does well, we’ll try to reduce it to once every other day. He’s been doing great so far, back to his old self trying to steal my food right when I bring food to my mouth every single bite.
Georgia’s allergy checkup and blood panel a few weeks ago was great, and even the vet was surprised how well she’s doing on just the weekly allergy shots alone without any other medication. This was the first time she had not had any yeast infection flare up in between the checkups.
Foster, of course, is healthy… well, at least physically. If only he would stop giving himself puncture wounds that need stitching up, that would be awesome.
The vet called me around 10am to let me know that Grizzley ate some dry food over night. He also pooped and peed. The vet is hoping he would eat more during the day and hopefully I could take him home tomorrow. So that’s the good news.
Not so good news, I wouldn’t call it particularly bad news, is that Brandy’s fecal came back normal – no parasites, which we were hoping for. I say it’s not particularly bad because after giving her a dose of med that makes her stool firmer (and fights bacteria and giardia if she picks it up) , her stool already firmed up a bit this morning. If her stool remains firm after finishing the med, it could just mean bacterial over growth. Otherwise, we’ll go from there. I need to give her yogurt with her food to provide her with good bacteria. At this point, I have to weigh the pros and cons of giving her raw diet any more because clearly, raw diet is not recommended for dogs with compromised immune system since obviously raw meat contains higher bacterial count. We’ll see…
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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