Katy and the Rock

Our dog Katy gave us quite the scare last week.  On Tuesday our dogs slept in the garage and Geoff told me that one or both of them had peed in the garage which is really unusual.  The next morning there was a lot more pee (so we thought) in the garage.  When I went to feed them in the a.m. Katy literally turned and walked away from her bowl without touching her food.  I knew right away that something was very.seriously.wrong.  She hasn't NOT eaten her food ever in 10 years!!  Shortly after I saw her kind of spit up yellow/orange fluid (it looked like bile).  That is when I realized that she had been getting sick in the garage.  The vet told us to bring her in immediately.

They kept her all day and all night Tuesday.  She didn't get sick but they had her on anti-nausea meds.  She did alarm them by getting sick after 24 hours on the meds, so they recommended moving on to blood work…then x-rays.

They found a rock several feet away from several other rocks.  Katy started eating rocks when we moved here.  The vet told me that it was just a really bad habit.  The vet couldn't say that the rock was 100% the problem bc the rock actually isn't too big for the size dog that Katy is.

   Next up, a barium test.  She then knew there was an obstruction so Katy went in to surgery.

The rock was the cause of the obstruction.  It was just not moving.  The vet said it had passed through about a foot of her intestines.  It had caused some damage but the vet said it looked reversible.  The rock was in her duodenum and it could have been a really bad situation.  We were so worried about her!  Her poor belly with lots of stitches.

She is doing great thank goodness!!!  She is five days post surgery now and is in the house full-time because she can't jump or run for 2 weeks.  We also have to figure out how to get her to stop eating rocks in our yard!!

We know she is feeling better because she was back to trying to grab food off of our counters, out of the pantry, and out of the garbage can.  While I was typing this post, I heard growling in the pantry…both Katy and Bear were standing at the doorway with their backs toward me.  Katy turned around and had a bag of hamburger buns in her mouth (Bear was growling at her).  Katy literally just dropped the whole bag and moped back to her bed to lay down.

She can't eat any food other than her special post-surgery food so we really have to watch her.  Obviously Bear is watching her too!