Separation Anxiety

19 August 2007 – Well it’s been an interesting week with the beagles. When we picked the dogs up from the vet on Sunday they both had very bad diarrhea. I called the vet immediately and complained and said I wanted it noted in their record. By Monday night Jack was still ill and not eating anything. As soon as I got home from work I took him into the vet. The tech told me that it is typical of the beagle breed to have separation anxiety. Then after the vet examined Jack he said he did not appear to be ill, no fever or any other symptoms other than the diarrhea and lack of appetite. The vet said that he probably was suffering from, …. you….. are ….. not …..going …..to ….. believe ….. this ….. ….. ….. ….. , irritable bowel syndrome.!!!!!! Can you even believe this?!?!? Are you laughing hysterically?!?!?!? What really adds to the hilarity of this is that my own IBS flared up on the trip and I was absolutely miserable for most of the trip. But I was determined to not let it ruin our vacation so I trekked on and had a fabulous time anyway.

So back to the dogs. The vet gave me some medication for Jack and tells me to put Jack on the rice diet that I used to have to make for Gideon when he was sick. So I go home and make the rice stuff up for the dogs. I put both of them on the rice because although Chloe was eating, she still had the diarrhea. So on Tuesday we feed them the rice stuff. Jack wolfs it down but Chloe won’t touch it. I think, “Oh no, now I have to take her to the vets too.” But she is not acting like Jack did. She acts like she is hungry. I had some leftover pot roast in the fridge. I put the drippings from the meat on her food and she eats it. OK, so now I know it was just too plain for our picky Miss Chloe. So how will I get her to eat it the next night? I know, I just bought some chicken livers at the market. So when I get home from work the next day I get the chicken livers out and boil them until cooked. Then I put them into the blender and puree them and add them to the rice stuff. Now both dogs will have a delicious meal of rice and liver. Right? Wrong! Jack is happy as a clam. He LOVES the liver stuff. Thinks he has died and gone to doggy heaven for sure. Nothing could be better than this. Chloe on the other hand is turning her nose up at it. She takes a sniff and walks away. She wants nothing to do with the rice, the liver, or the combination of the two. When Kent fed Jack, he gave him the liver stuff and a bit of his hard dry food. Jack is so excited by the smell of the liver stuff on the counter that he leaves some of the dry food in his bowl. Miss Chloe goes over and finishes it off. So I serve her up a bowl of the dry food and she eats it all. No more problems. She’s not interested in the sick dog diet.

Thursday I had to drop Kent off somewhere and we took the dogs with us in the car. When I got home there were cars in front of our house so I parked in front of the neighbor’s house across the street. As I pull up the dogs start barking like crazy. They love to bark, but usually you can figure out what they are barking at; another dog, a person walking by on the street, a squirrel, a cat or some other critter. But there was nothing in front of the neighbor’s house. Then I figured it out. My 2 brainless dogs were barking at something sitting on the neighbor’s front porch. It’s a statue of a dog. I can hear their conversation now. “Boy, we really scared him. He didn’t move a muscle!”