To be really worried about my dog?

[PoorlyPup]

I have a 20 month old yorkiepoo, and she means the world to me.

She was in season in December, and she has been a bit sleepier than usual since then and just not herself, but no major concerns. Still active and happy and training/competing in the sport we do together. Then this week she seems to have taken a turn for the worse, she’s hardly been eating, and just seemed completely listless and lethargic. Tried taking her for walks but she’s just wanted to be carried. Yesterday she only ate a tiny bit of food, and this morning she vomited yellow bile.

I took her to the vets today and he’s ruled out a phantom pregnancy, couldn’t feel anything worrying when he examined her, heart and temp normal. He said to cook her some chicken and rice and try to get her to eat. He gave her an anti nausea injection. She still hasn’t eaten anything at all, or had a drink since yesterday. I’ve tried tempting her with every kind of food I can but she’s not interested. For the last 12 hours since she got back from the vets she’s just been curled up in a little ball and not moved at all, apart from when I carried her outside a couple of times for a wee.

The vet said to take her back tomorrow if she doesn’t eat, so of course I will, but in the meantime I’m too worried to be able to sleep 😞.

Change of plan. The vet just phoned, nothing obvious with her bloods and she’s only very slightly dehydrated, and she’s losing her shit being put in a kennel so he suggested that taking her home for the night and bringing her back in tomorrow for scans might be a better option as she’s so distressed there.

It's horrible leaving them :( but better to find out if there is anything unsettling her & get it fixed. She'll be SO glad to see you tomorrow!

See my update, she’ll be seeing me in about 5 minutes 🤦‍♀️. She is ridiculously clingy so I didn’t think she’d cope very well, turns out she didn’t.

aw, that's better she is at home
are you meant to be giving a band diet?

Hope you get some answers soon

This sounds very similar to a family members dog who developed a liver shunt - but of course could be a million other things too. Definitely doing the right thing getting bloods and a scan done done - ask them to do full checks to rule out anything nasty like that

The vet said he was a lot less worried about her now he’s seen the results of her blood tests, as there’s nothing wrong with her liver or kidneys or a serious infection. She had another anti sickness injection, and came home and was rooting through the shopping bags looking for things to eat. Just cooked her some chicken and sweet potato, she wouldn’t touch the sweet potato but she ate a fair bit of the chicken, and also ate some of the cats food while I was waiting for it to cook. So that’s a good sign. They said I only need to take her in tomorrow if she still hasn’t eaten, so fingers crossed the food she ate tonight stays down.

Randomly on my bill they’ve also charged me for some antidepressants, but they didn’t mention this when I picked her up nor did they give me any tablets to take away.

And to the PP who mentioned Addisons disease, I did ask about whether the bloods would test for that. The vet said no but they do check potassium levels, and a certain level of potassium indicates possible addisons disease, at which point they would test for that. But her levels were fine so that’s been ruled out.

are you sure it wasnt anti sickness?

Definitely antidepressants! I googled what they were as for a start I hadn’t been given any tablets and secondly no one mentioned them to me. I guess they thinking about the phantom pregnancy angle maybe 🤔. Although when I spoke to the vet before I picked her up he said what the other vet said, that she isn’t displaying all the signs they’d expect. But either way I didn’t get any tablets when I left.

Was it Trazodone by any chance?

It is sometimes used to calm down animals on cage rest for some reason - unlike all the other antidepressants, it takes action within 2 hours and doesn't have a sedative effect (ie doesn't impair muscle function, leaving the brain racing, it genuinely calms them down.).

I would query it, not unheard of for things to be discussed, added to the bill but then not actually done in the end, when a dog is in.

Was it mirtazapine? We have had it to help with appetite in our cats before

Yes that’s what it was. Ah that’s interesting, I only had a quick google to see what it was they’d charged me for and I saw the possible side effects included loss of appetite and nausea so was a bit confused 😵‍💫.

She’s continued eating, she had a bit more chicken and a fair bit of kibble which she wanted me to feed her one by one, by hand, like the princess that she is but it’s all stayed down so far so 🤞, I’ll cancel the further tests in the morning if she hasn’t been sick, as they said she’d only need them if she still wasn’t eating. Trying not to get my hopes up as the last evening of eating was followed by a lot of puking the next day but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

@PoorlyPup
How is your girl doing this morning?

So far, so good. She seems a lot livelier and happy to go for a 15 min walk, and didn’t ask to be carried! No vomiting, and she ate a fair bit last night (had more chicken at about 9pm). So I cancelled the scans today and hopefully she continues to improve.

Also queried the tablets and apparently she was given a quarter of a tablet to stimulate her appetite, and it says 28 tablets on the bill because that’s just the way the bills are written 🤷‍♀️. Definitely helped though, when I got back with her from the vets I dumped the zipped up cool bag of shopping on the sofa while I went upstairs for a wee, by the time I’d got back down she’d managed to get into the bag, removed the chicken breasts I’d bought for her and was trying to open the packet. Most unlike her as even when she’s not sick she isn’t massively bothered about food.

Don’t think I’ll claim on the insurance as so far I’ve paid about £230, and I have a per condition policy so I guess that means any future sickness episodes won’t be covered if I claim.

what kibble is she on? I had real trouble with a dog of mine as he came out of adolescence because the protein content was too high and it was putting to much strain on the liver. The picking out of chicken, ham and eggs and not eating the sweet potato might be compounding this.

I think highly keen dog owners who want to do the best by their dogs can look for things like the 'best quality' foods, but can end up getting sucked down the wrong path. May be worth considering if the vet can't find anything with her

I have tried so many, including all of the super expensive ones, but the only one I’ve found that she will fairly reliably eat is the Royal Canin mini kibble (not a breed specific one, just the general mini kibble). So in normal times she has that each day, she also likes the fish4dogs small kibble which we win mini bags of quite often at agility, that’s what she was getting me to give her last night, one by one 🤣. The one she had last night was salmon and potato, she likes the white fish and potato one too.

I'm glad she's doing better today. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. When I was in the same boat, I never did find out what had caused my dog's illness. I guess human's regularly get illness bugs and never know the cause.

If you're really worried about your dog, monitor for symptoms like lethargy, loss of appetite, vomiting, or unusual behavior. If these persist, consult a vet immediately to ensure their health teraboxmodapk and safety.

Has the vet checked for pancreatitis? There is a blood test for it and often vets do not do this test.
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/pancreatitis-in-dogs/

She’s fine now thankfully! Back out training and won a competition this week. I’d say she’s not 💯 still energy wise, but she’s getting there, so I’m just keeping an eye on her and just doing as much walking and training with her as she’s able to do before she gets tired. I guess it’s like when humans get a bug, you can feel a bit wiped out for a few weeks after the other symptoms have gone.

I'm so pleased for you and your cutie.