$600 Later . . .

This past week, we had a little veterinary adventure (prospective lab owners: you will have a lot of these! get excited!). I noticed Porter feeling bad one night - whining, being clingy, and most alarmingly, drooling profusely. By about 11:30 PM, he was so bad that we decided to brave the emergency vet fee and took him in. He had some fun X-rays and got some major drugs. The X-rays revealed several unidentified objects in his intestines (sadly, no clearly discernible Monopoly pieces, alarm clocks, or rubber chickens to make a good story). Nothing was too big or too jagged, so we took the drugged lab home and spent the next several days on poop patrol. Apparently, whatever it was has either passed or is no longer bothering the big guy.

Here he is on Saturday, trying to devour a stick and start the entire intestinal distress process over again. As you can see, he is feeling better. Thank the Lord. We complain about Porter's crazy antics sometimes, but when a dog with this much personality is feeling sick, you a) notice right away and b) definitely start to miss the crazy.

Some Health Information

Over the Thanksgiving break, we had a VERY scary episode with Porter and horse wormer that contained Ivermectin. We were administering wormer to the horses when Porter came out of nowhere and did the worst possible thing - he tried to grab the used tube of wormer from my hand, ingesting a good bit of the leftover paste in the process. I immediately called the vet, who instructed me to induce vomiting by administering 2 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide (after asking his weight). Poor Porter was violently ill for the next 10-15 minutes, and I was not doing much better myself. He recovered quickly after emptying his stomach, and has been perfectly fine ever since. Still, I wanted to put this here as a reference and as a warning.

If you have horses, or if your dog is around horses, be extremely careful to keep your dog away from Ivermectin wormers!

I won't get too technical, because there is plenty of better info on the web, but in short: Ivermectin is an antiparasitic medication that is used to treat for worms in a variety of animals, including dogs and horses. However, the relative doses and forms of ivermectin matter a lot, and the ivermectin concentration and dosage found in horse wormer (formulated for 1000+ lb animal!) can be extremely toxic to dogs, which are at least 1/10 that size. If you think your dog has eaten a high dose of Ivermectin, you should call your vet immediately.

I hope that this information is useful to someone out there.

Other things I have learned via Porter's amazing drive to ingest everything possible:

• A dog's stomach acid will dissolve a shaving razor in 15-20 minutes. If you think they've eaten a razor, but it was two days ago, they're going to be fine.
• A little bit of blood in their vomit isn't necessarily cause for a CAT scan, and 2 tablespoons of petroleum jelly (which they will LICK OFF THE SPOON) and a day of fasting will probably clear it right up.
• 9 chocolate chip cookies are no big deal for a big dog. . . but keep them away from grapes and raisins!
  
• Porter is a "puker." Dogs can throw up as easily as we can bend our arms, and some do so with reckless abandon. He is one of them. Woo hoo!

And now, back to pictures. . .

Big, big day for the little man

Porter's gone in to be neutered this morning. We know it's the right thing to do, but it was hard to drop him off. He's also getting his hips X-rayed, his nails clipped, and some spots checked out. The procedure will be done with a laser (supposedly much better than the old way) and he'll get a pain injection afterwards. We hope he can come home tonight, but he may stay overnight. He weighed in at 80.6 pounds this morning.

Be brave, little Portah!

UPDATE: Porter's out of surgery and doing fine. (That was fast!) His X-rays look good (no hip problems) and everything else seems normal. He can come home tonight. Whew.

Not So Hot

Porter's been under the weather the past two days. He was stung by a bee or a spider (we think) and has had a bad reaction, including swelling of his eye and face and under his arms. He's all doped up on Benadryl and has been to the vet twice. He still managed to play mascot at the softball game and did a wonderful job. He's a trooper. Look at him down there pretending to be OK, when he's really all hopped up on OTC antihistamines:

Thuh Toof Faihy Be-ah Vizzuh Muh Thunigh

Porter had to have a tooth pulled today. Behold, the Bloody Hole of Doom! He was super brave.


One of Porter's baby canine teeth (a fang, if you will) got banged pretty hard (goodness knows how) but was still in his mouth, but very loose, and very brown and gray and dead and... stinky. I knew it wasn't supposed to come out until 6 months on its own, and wasn't sure what to do, so I took him to see his favorite vet, Dr. Graves. Dr. Graves said, "No problem," and before either of us knew what was happening, he whipped out a pair of pliers. I squeaked involuntarily, closed my eyes, heard a POP!, and when I looked back, Porter was wagging his tail and Dr. Graves was tossing the offending tooth in the trash. Then Porter hopped down and caught several treats on the fly, oblivious to his recent major oral surgery. AND Dr. Graves just waved us out without charging us a thing. He is the BEST. And Porter is fine.

For future reference, if they damage a baby tooth, my vet said that it was OK to leave them alone.