Daily Life
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.
January 28, 2007
Sunday morning we went to church, we were probably there in body, but not in mind. We were trying to decide whether or not to keep our over night friend. On the car ride to and from church, Sarah and I talked about the pros and the cons of keeping him, and whether we were going to be able to handle the commitment.
We both thought that for at least a month, if not a couple, one of us would have to come home and let the puppy out to do his business. We heard that a young dog can hold his bladder one hour longer than he is months old, so with him being just over 8 weeks, that meant not very long.
When we got home, Sarah expressed to me that she wanted to keep him. I didn’t picture giving him back, but at the same time I was unsure if he would be our puppy or not. I think for me, it was her want that made me take the plunge. About 2:00 we headed down to Petsmart with our puppy to see what would need to be done to make him a permanent member of our family.
We were at Petsmart for about 2 hours, there was a lot to do. We had a number of forms to fill out, one of which was a waiver for the dog’s health and any sort of guarantees. We thought about it, but there isn’t anything you can do, if you want a dog from them, you had to sign the waiver and we never thought it would ever be an issue for us. Part of the happiest news, and something small I took as a sign, the dogs were going for $40 today, instead of the $60 yesterday, so I thought that was a pretty good deal.
We carried him around as we went from place to place. As we got through with forms, we took him into the local vet hospital that is located inside Petsmart and had them do a simple preliminary check over for his health and to see if there was anything wrong. I wrote a whole article about this in my “Opinions” section. It was an ok look over, but beyond something obvious like the puppy missing an eye, it really didn’t do anything other than for a simpleminded person who may believe an ok from a vet assistant meant they had some ultimate power to read the puppy’s mind.
Nothing against that vet assistant though, she was very nice. We talked to her, trying to figure out what we were going to name him. She had a couple of dogs, and the names just came to her. Her biggest piece of advice was to not second guess our first thought and just go with it, so we took that to heart and went about our other necessities.
Then, we had to go get food. We got a long education from one very knowledgeable worker at the store about different foods, what was good, what wasn’t, etc. etc. Then, we had to a book of coupons, so we had to hunt around the store for the initial necessities, a collar, a lease, and one toy. Then, as if there wasn’t enough already, if we wanted some of the deals we had to sign up for the official Petsmart card.
But by late afternoon, our new unnamed puppy was all ours and we took him home.
The lady that gave us all the advice on the food, told us a story about a lady she had met that wanted to bottle up Puppy breath so she could smell it anytime she wanted. Uh, right…Not us. We do not like the dog’s breath, and hope it goes away, but are going to be proactive about it as well. We got him some green breath fresheners and he seems to like them. He had better, his breath stinks like stale poop.
The rest of the night we laid around and took turns playing with him and just hanging out upstairs in front of the tv. Eventually we had to put the puppy to bed, so we took the box that we had kept him in, into the room and put it next to the bed so we could keep an eye on him.
Introduction
Our puppy Kellogg. Our sweet puppy Kellogg that we loved so much, and we lost too soon.
We had been recording his puppy firsts and his growth in a little written book that Petsmart had given us, but I thought maybe a section on my website would be more appropriate. As I started to write about him, to deal with the pain, it turned into a biography of his life, and I felt like that information was important. We need to remember, we need to remember what it was like to be happy with him, that he was happy, and not concentrate on his last moments which is so easy to do.
So although most of this will be written in retrospective with the best of my memory, it is pretty close to the right dates and what actually happened. I don’t expect anyone else to understand, but Sarah and I will look at this in time, and our hearts will mend. It is for us, and for what Kellogg brought to our lives in such a short time.
January 27, 2007
We had made a commitment today to go out and look at puppies. I heard that there were going to be a cute shepherd mix at one of the stores, so we were hoping in particular to see those dogs. We started at Petsmart, they seemed to have quite a few puppies up for grabs. There was one really pretty dog there that I was interested in, but the breed wasn’t something I was interested in for a grown up dog, so we resisted.
In a litter of what looked like boxer lab mixes we saw a puppy that caught our eye. We had been looking for a dog like Lady, and were really drawn to what looked like a little Shar Pei. We spent nearly the next two hours playing with this little guy. He kind of wandered the store, exploring, and wasn’t too interested in us. Then we started to try to get his attention with newspaper, crumpling it up and making noise, and that got him excited. He bounded next to us, trying to nip the paper, and this was what we were looking for, a playful puppy.
Then he took a little break to poop in the corner:)
We talked it over, and decided that we would take advantage of the “foster” program, and take him home for the night. From then on out, he was pretty sleepy. We carried him out of the store, wrapped up in my fleece jacket and took him home. But first we had to make a stop at Walmart, to get some blue Dawn soap. We didn’t realize that this was a good cleaner for puppies, but that is what the rescue told us. After rolling around in dog waste for the past couple of days, no matter how cute he smelled like a fuzzy turd.
The first thing we did when we got him home was to give him a bath. Surprisingly, he was very good and seemed calm through the whole process. But he sure did shiver a lot, his small little bony frame was thin to the point that we asked about his health when we were at the store. Malnourished but normal, we were informed that there was nothing to worry about.
He wasn’t very eventful that first night. He would sleep for very long periods of time, with short bursts of playtime that would last about 15 minutes. We got a lot of photos of him sleeping in a Pampered Chef box we made up for him with some blankets, and on top of us in a blanket.
When he was awake, he was very playful, he would play with anything we gave him. We made a sock filled with newspaper for him to chew on because of his reaction to the newspaper in the store, and that got us in some tug of war matches. He even got his tiny mouth around a tennis ball that we got from the garage and carried it around some. Sarah had a little doll from a cereal box that we gave him as well. It was a Dr. Seuss character named “Thing 1” that had this thin little red body, and electric blue hair styled like he was Einstein or something. I think this was probably his favorite toy, he would carry this all around with him, where ever he would go.
We both spent the whole night playing, and stayed up pretty late. I stayed up the latest, which meant that I got to lay him down for the night, which we were both worried about. We had made up a little blanketed area in the garden tub, sectioned off with two laundry tubs. I laid him down, pet him some, and then shut the door.
His whimpering started immediately, and it lasted for awhile. Sarah got up, laid on the tubs in the bathroom petting him until both he and Sarah fell asleep. Sarah eventually came back to bed and he slept through most of the night until the early morning. Sarah got up with him, took him outside, and then stayed in the living room half napping half playing until I woke Sunday morning.
