Kellogg
February 3, 2007
We alternated spending time with Kellogg today, I was gone to the gym in the morning, and then home for a little bit with him before I had to go into work to help move and some other stuff. We both spent time with him after dinner and then we had to get back to doing some of our respective things. Later on during the night, we took our first new “family” photo of the three of us together because Sarah was making it up for the class she was taking. He was so cute, we couldn’t get him to look at the camera but it was nice to have a photo of us all together, it made it seem like our future was ahead of us.
Our cute puppy story for the day was, Sarah noticed Kellogg doing something odd in the kitchen. He seemed to be doing some sort of Army crawl around on the kitchen floor through the pegs on the chair legs. He went through two before he would wander sideways out into the family room. We have no idea what it was all about, but it wasn’t the last time that he did it, and it was cute, but didn’t make any sense.
February 2, 2007
Kellogg was eating more this morning, which made us feel a little better. But, it was weighing on my mind what to do about his parvo test. As I have mentioned, from what little we know, it appears that waiting any amount of time can be fatal for a young dog, but leaving work for a day really isn’t a good idea either to have this sort of thing taken care of.
When I got into work I called two other veterinarian offices to try to do some fact finding. I didn’t get too much peace of mind, and what I kept coming back to was that Banfield had better hours in general than a regular vet office. I had been sick all week, so when my boss came in and heard what was going on, he told me to just take a half day, take the puppy in and get some rest. So that is exactly what I did.
I got home, fed Kellogg, and then rushed him down to Banfield to take his test. I held him close as I took him inside through the cold weather in his box. He was pretty restless in the office, whining and trying to get out of his box, and I had to reign him in. When the doctor came in she stuck a q-tip like thing in his rear end, and I held him as he yelped. Then, it was only a matter of waiting, it would only take 15 minutes to get results back.
Thank God, the results came back negative, I was relieved and I knew Sarah would be too. what this also meant was that since he had the shot earlier in the week, and this test came back negative we could get him on the wellness plan. This was a package they set up for new dog owners, especially geared towards puppies, to be comprehensive and take care of all of the shots, visits, and even the neutering for a very reasonable price we thought. We could go month to month, or pay up front for the whole year. I was still nervous, because of what had happened so far to do the year up front, so I just went month to month. It was the exact same amount either way.
Sarah came home right after school and was very happy to hear the good news. Kellogg just stayed downstairs with me. He was so sleepy and cute, I wrapped him up in my blanket and set him on my desk so I could watch him. We got some great photos of him sleeping upside down with his ear over his head.
We had some dinner, gave him some attention, and all snuggled for the rest of the night, watching some movies. Tonight was also the night that Kellogg got his first rawhide, and he just loved it. We loved watching him. I don’t think any toy he has had quite this response, he just chewed and chewed and did nothing else for the rest of the night until he had eaten it all. He would walk around with it, chew and make the squeaky noise, stand still and look at us with it hanging out of the side of his mouth like an errant doggie tongue, and he would even like to share it with us, climbing up on us laying down and working away at demolishing this resistant white flavored goodie.
Kellogg (Our Puppy) Photo Gallery
February 1, 2007
It was not a good morning. Sarah woke me up for work, and said “It’s time to get up, go out and have some breakfast and when you finish I have something to show you.” I knew it was regarding the dog.
After I ate, Sarah got out one of our extra containers that used to have parmesan cheese in it. Inside was a big piece of poop with a very long white something in it. She asked me if that was a worm, and I said that it is really the only thing it could be, it was really white and very long. We were upset, and thought maybe this was related to the growling. Sarah promised she would come home at a decent hour to get the puppy down to Banfield to check him out, and hopefully get him on the wellness plan.
Sarah was with him today though everything, she got Lori to watch the classroom and came home to be with at lunch, and when I got home they were gone to the vet. When Sarah got back shortly after me, the puppy was very sleepy, and Sarah was very upset, monotonously petting the dog in the same way and her eyes were bloodshot. I asked her what they said, and she said “Well, we have a very sick puppy” as she started to choke up.
She had taken the stool with her, and they confirmed that he had tape worm, and they did some tests on the stool and said that he has some bacteria that is consistent with parvovirus. This is a very serious disease that will eat away the intestinal lining, killing a dog in a matter of days. But don’t forget the worms, normally you won’t even see them, they just get eaten up by the acid, but when the case is advanced enough they can come out in his stool. So, we had a ton to think about. The parvovirus test at Banfield would be available during the day tomorrow, or not until Saturday. They didn’t have many of the test left, and it made things even harder. He could die so quick if it wasn’t caught early, but it was hard to just take the day off or work to get this test done, we didn’t have any sure answers.
We had gone through scenarios in our head of what could have happened. Even though he was eating less, he had started this weird habit of sitting to the side of the trash, looking up and whining. Even though he had made it into a seemingly too high paper recycle box, we knew there was no way he had gotten into the trash. We couldn’t figure it out, but figured it had no bearing on what was going on with him. (It wasn’t until later that we figured out he knew that his food sat up on the rolling shelf, and that he was looking up thinking about getting something to eat.)
He slept some more tonight, they had given him an oral medicine to help with the worms, so we are hoping he feels better tomorrow. We started putting chicken stock in his food to help him eat it, and even then he didn’t eat all of it. He must feel just terrible, and we felt horrible that he was having such a hard time. We did get some play out of him tonight, and treasured it that much more knowing what he was going through.
January 31, 2007
At lunch today Krinkle, or Kellogg, or whatever we were going to name him, didn’t eat yet again. He ate some breakfast, so he did go outside and do his business, but I was starting to get worried. Sarah told me to try adding some ripped up ham to his food and that is all he ate was the ham and left the dry stuff alone. Apparently that helped some in the morning, he ate some of the food with the ham, but not for me. Also, when I went to pick him up and take him outside, he did a little low level growl at me, which alarmed me quite a bit. It was triggered by me picking him up, and didn’t seem like a puppy who can just be noisy and expressive.
When Sarah got home she started calling our puppy Kellogg. I didn’t realize last night that she had liked the name so much, but apparently it really resonated. This was weird because it wasn’t the first name we had for him. We both really liked Krinkle, but I just felt like as he got older, that name wouldn’t be as fitting for an older dog. So, exciting times, our first puppy has a name, Kellogg.
But on to the serious stuff. I told Sarah about Kellogg’s outbursts at lunch, and the growling continued when we picked him up to take him out. It alarmed both of us, and he even snapped at Sarah cutting her cheek. Pretty freaked, we still decided to sit on it and do something tomorrow. It was late tonight, and we just wanted to play.
He is really cute. He is playing with just about everything with give him. We got him a little rope from Petsmart on adoption day that he will run around with on his own, or play tug of war with you. That also is supposed to freshen his breath, noticing a theme here? He bats the tennis ball around between his paws and around the room, and is starting to track it when I would roll it away for him to go and retrieve.
January 30, 2007
Only the second morning of work, I was starting to notice some of the puppy’s playful habits even at an early hour. I would walk out in my robe, not barely awake, put on my slippers, and everything was a chore. Two of the easiest things to get on, and he would have me work for it, biting my slippers and my bare feet, and in regards to my robe, if I didn’t get the sash up and out of jumping height, he was have that as his toy too. Then he would nip at my feet and run between my legs as I did the dead man shuffle out to the breakfast table.
Coming home from work to let him out was pretty normal today, he did his business with a little waiting. He ate his food, and had a lot of water, and I got to play with him some before I had to go back to work.
We played with him a lot when we were home, three days in a row he took up a good portion of our time, but there was one thing kind of odd, he didn’t eat very much, if at all at dinner. We thought for a growing puppy he should be starving, so we just filed it away and thought that it would just go away tomorrow.
We laughed a lot when we played with him tonight. We had kind of noticed this in the first few days, but each night he is getting more and more energy to play and sleeping in his box less. When he is up, he is extremely clumsy. He will lay down on the beanbag and then roll off onto his head, or be running and trip sideways and fall. The kitchen is difficult for his weak little legs, but most kitchens are, he just kind of slides everywhere, but we noticed especially that is target is really off when he goes to scratch himself either he can’t lift his leg up high enough, or he just misses entirely. It is just so stinking cute.
I was talking tonight to a friend of mine, and forgot that I had thought of another name during the day. I went upstairs to Sarah, who was in bed with the dog next to her reading, and told her I thought that Kellogg was a cute name. She seemed fairly indifferent, kind of saying it and trying it out, and I just let it sit as I went back to what I was doing.
January 29, 2007
The puppy didn’t sleep through the night, and Sarah was a saint. He woke up probably three times during the night needed to go potty, so Sarah got up and took him out, the first time as early as 2:30.
Being the first day we had to leave him at home, we were a little nervous and didn’t know what to do. Since he was so small, fairly weak, and really clumsy, we figured it would be ok to setup the baby gate by the back door, put him in his box, and then wedge a large rock to keep him pinned in and away from knocking over the gate. He whined a good deal when we left which tore us apart, but we expected no less.
The first day back to work, the first day home to let the dog out. I got in at a decent time so I could leave and get him out right at lunch. We were pretty nervous about him making it that long, and I thought about him all morning and the drive back to the house.
When I got in, I dropped my stuff and rushed over to the back door. He wasn’t there. This didn’t surprise me too much. I have been around enough lonely dogs now in my life to know even weak little puppies find strength to do some pretty amazing things.
So, I turned around and looked in the most logical places, first, down our hall. I didn’t find the dog, but I found something else that alarmed me. I found one pile, of what I thought was poop, with small amounts of blood in it, one drop of blood close by, and a puddle of pee. But no dog.
Then I came back out to the kitchen, no luck their either. I started to get nervous. The stairs were blocked off, and I felt stupid. He was just a little dog, he couldn’t have made it far. Worried, and rushing more, I started to call out the many different names we had thought of but hadn’t settled on yet. I returned back to the scene of where it started, surely there must be something here that would give me a clue.
I turned my head so slightly to notice our cute little puppy, and his head sticking out between two pillows on the couch. He had gotten up on the beanbag and used his claws to get on the couch, and then snuggled away in the corner. It was too cute, and I went to get my camera, to then notice his backside just barely sticking out of those pillows, blending right in with the color of the couch. To this day, these are two of our most treasured photos.
I took him into the kitchen for some lunch. I walked out to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, he had done just that. A huge steaming pile right by the kitchen sink. Thrilling. So, I got out my face mask and gloves, and gated him in the kitchen while I started the 15 minutes task that was cleaning up all of his messes. I barely had time to eat lunch, or even just say hello to him before I had to run back out to work. I knew he wasn’t going to stay where we had him, so I just kept the gate up and left him in the kitchen. At least messes would be easy to clean. I moved his box by the fridge and headed out.
I beat Sarah home, and he had only gone once, a small pee spot right in front of his box, so that was encouraging.
The rest of the night we just enjoyed him, doing some more snuggling in front of our Monday night tv. I do remember trying to eat dinner and he kept biting at my toes, which was really distracting and painful, sharp little puppy teeth.
