A Pet Emergency

This has been a crazy week, and I thought briefly that we might lose Bentley. Evidently, he ate a piece of a dog toy, and it became lodged in his intestine. There may have been 2 pieces, we are not quite sure. Early in the week, it became clear that Bentley was in discomfort and pain, and that something was stuck in his digestive tract. He was stretching and writing in pain. We hoped he might work it out or throw it up as he'd done in the past in similar situations, but this time, no amount of vomiting seemed to work.

After 36 hours with no real signs of improvement, and a clear deterioration of his health as a result of not eating or drinking, we took the dog to our local vet. Sadly we don't have pet insurance. . .

They put Bentley under and took a bunch of x-rays. It appeared that the obstruction had worked its way into his large intestine, and that it would resolve itself on its own with a little more time. Feeling very releaved, we took Bentley home that night and for the first time in 36 hours, we managed to get him to eat a spoonful of food.

The next morning, Bentley seemed to be a bit better. He ate some soft food and was drinking water. It looked like he was on the mend, and with the help of Nurse Pepper, he'd be back to himself in no time.

Unfortunately, the following morning, Bentley began acting strange again. He refused food (which is unheard of for him), and wouldn't drink. He hadn't thrown up by the time I left for work, but by around noon, it was looking haggard and was throwing up. We took him back to the vet.

This time they found the second obstuction in his small intestine. It was quite sizable, and they decided to operate to get it out of him. The operation was a success, and they removed a 1 inch diameter piece of a rubber dog toy. They kept him overnight for observation.

We visited him the following morning to check up on him. His tail wagged weakly when he saw us, and though a bit dopey on morphine, he looked in much better shape. They told us that he had eaten 1/3 of a can of food that morning. We had to leave him for a second night of observation so that they would be sure of his continued improvement.

Thankfully, he is home now and recovering. He looks to have a speedy recovery. And though we had to spend a small fortune to save our special little guy, I guess he's worth it.

We'll give him this one time. . .

One thing is for certain, he's wearing a muzzle when we go to the park from now on.