So last wednesday, I get home and there is a note from my walker stating that Tucker has some soft stool. I'm thinking it's no big deal… Later that evening, I take him out and he's pooping liquid, pretty much. And he's still doing this every 45 minutes when he's scratching to go out. This lasts until we go to bed, no big deal. For the first time ever, he wakes me up for a trip outside at about 4am. He's still acting normal aside from his 'movements', so I didn't get too worried.
Morning comes and he's not pooping. So I figure he's all done with it. Call the walker just after noon and she said he didn't poop again. But she did notice a 'spot' on my chaise (coverd with blankets for him) and siad it looked like he might have thrown up. I started calling vets but all were booked and I figured I'd just see what was up when I got home.
So I get home....O M G!
(do not read beyond here if you have a weak stomach or are offended by 'poop talk'!!!)
I had mistakingly left the door to my bedroom open. Three large piles of diarhea on the duvet cover. No less than 5 locations across the living room carpet with connecting trickles. He even managed to poop on the wall and the side of my leather ottomans. A large schmear across my hardwood floors, and, of course, the spot on the chaise blanket. I swear I almost cried. Still no visible loss of activity or sickness from Tucker, though. He was just as normal as any other day when I got home. Perhaps he was proud of the 'artwork' that now covered my condo. It really looked like someone had detonated a diarhea bomb in the middle of my bed and in the living room. How much could possibly come out of such a small dog? I mean, forreal???
So, I take him out and he doesn't 'produce' (I imagine whatever was left was now on my bed and carpet...and wall...and ottomans...). I fence him in the kitchen for fear of further accidents. I also put his rather expensive shag mat in there with him and I'm off to buy carpet cleaner. I get home to a shredded mat ($50 bucks down the toilet) and the clean up still ahead of me. Apparently, after all that destruction, being locked in the kitchen was unacceptable. :rolleyes:
3 hours and three loads of laundry later, the condo is back to normal.
I fed him boiled chicken and white rice for about 5 meals, integrating his normal food back into his diet, and the very next 'movement' was hardening up.
Tucker returned to 'normal' over the weekend. Turns out he had eaten to the core of a piece of bad rawhide (kinda soft in the middle and smelled like sewage). Unfortunately, in hindsight, I knew that rawhide was nasty but he had eaten so much of it before I noticed the smell, and he was very possesive when I went to take it away, I just let him finish it figuring if he liked it and hadn't a clue it was going to result in the way it did.
I guess the good news, if there were any to be found in this story, is that it all cleaned up completely. He didn't hit the sofa material and nothing was ruined, in the end....no pun intended. :o
Glad I held out for the vet because they would have just violated him and sent me a bill for $250 and told me to do what I had figured out on my own.
