After a good night's sleep, have woken to clearer thinking. It's amazing what sleep can do! I can see this has provoked a discussion about raw food diet.
I was all ready to give this a try and thought it might help massively with Rollo's desire to chew everything. You can imagine how hard this might be to follow through, though, given every vet I spoke to about it, including at a vet teaching hospital, was aghast and felt it'd make Rollo much much more ill. They were all of the opinion that the bacteria in raw food would exacerbate Rollo's problems and make him suffer even more.
So whilst I can't rule it out, given the weight of opinion on here, I also feel worried about giving it a try, if the vets are saying please, please DON'T. Your dog will become even more ill.
The PTS comment that the vet made was NOT a recommendation to follow through but rather a possible final option, if Rollo continued to suffer. She was looking at him as he lay on the floor, panting, distressed, semi-conscious. She knows we've been here many times before.
I can't understand why some of the replies here are suggesting I'm making this harder than it needs to be? I'm bending over backwards, trying to make it all work and doing everything in my power to continue to keep Rollo and keep my DCs lives going along smoothly. Incidentally, there is no ex (solo by choice), no family and all help I've ever had has to be paid for. So it really is down to me, my earning capacity, my ability to be everything to everyone!
Minimuu, DT2 hasn't 'got over' the trauma of facing the possible loss of his one hol. a yr - which did indeed go ahead - because he has Asperger's traits and thing like this haunt him obsessively. He asks daily about Rollo's quality and number of poos and is hypervigilant about Rollo becoming ill. Every single morning, DT2's first words to me are, "Did the dog wake you? Has he got diarrhoea?" He is completely panicked by this and the impact it has had on the family. He has a lot of obsessive worries because of his condition. It's probably difficult to imagine what having a child like this is like, unless you have one similar yourself.
It's in this context that I'm trying to reduce the effect Rollo's recurrent illness has on my DCs and family life. That's why I'm up in the night, in the garden with Rollo having diarrhoea. Otherwise Rollo - who is brilliantly toilet trained - lets me know he needs to go out - thus waking the DTs.
If I sound stressed, it's because there's only me here to run the family, generate and earn an income to look after that family - dog and cats included - and only a certain number of hrs in the day and night to do everything for everyone all the time.
I imagined having a dog would mean a lot of initial hard work but also so much pleasure. I hadn't factored in the ongoing impact of losing 3 to 4 hrs a day of time, for Rollo's needs instead of to work/look after DCs and the home and the business etc. I'd just seem myself enjoying country walks, getting physically fit. I knew dog's got ill but i hadn't imagined that after researching a good breeder, getting a recommendation etc, that we'd end up with the ONLY puppy out of the 19 born, who has stomach problems!
I will see what the vet says today. It's a different one on duty but I may not even get to speak to her directly as I'm working this morning and will probably have to speak to one of the nurses instead and get info. second hand. The vet will have closed when I end work today and I'm not sure then whether I can go and collect Rollo (if they'll let him out) from the nurses and whatever meds. they give him this time- or if they'll keep him in or what.
I have had a determination to make this work and to continue my responsibility to Rollo for the whole year we've had him. I've spent thousands of pounds on vet bills, training, one to one and classes, equipment etc and hours and hours looking after him, walking him, training him, getting up inthe night with him. I've never been one to give up. I do know though that my DCs are suffering and that I HAVE to put them first. If there is a solution, then I'll keep looking for it. But I can't keep spending so much money.
I'm definitely open to trying raw food but I'm also apprehensive that it'll make Rollo even more ill and in pain in his stomach, as every vet has told me.
How can anyone predict what having a dog will be like, until they've had one? I imagined that I could balance the dog's needs with everyone else's needs and the fact that I run my own business and work from home, made me belive that I could arrange things to fit a dog in too. Other people seem to make it work, so why couldn't I? I hadn't expected to get a chronically sick dog, as I'd only targeted recommended breeders who had a healthy line of dogs.
I DID probably expect too much of myself, as a single mum with no other adult back-up in my life. I am trying to be everything for everyone - the only wage earner, the accountant, secretary/admin. person/ the 'domestic goddess'!/cleaner/housekeeper - the only parent in my DCs lives (and no grandparents etc for them either). I know lots of other people do this every day too and lots of other people have dogs added to the equation. So I assume it can work. Or do other people have an ex or an OH or a mum or a sister/aunt or another source of income ? I don't know...
Anyway, I appreciate that strong feelings are raised by my OP and reiterate that I'm still doing everything I can to find a happy solution for us all. I haven't given up on Rollo at all. I'm just not sure yet how to make it work for everyone, given his health issues and my life's demands.