Zeke was one sorry dog Monday night.
Not feeling so well, eh?
Late in the afternoon he went out on the deck with me, and saw/heard/smelled something in the woods. So he ran down the stairs, jumped over the gate and disappeared. I gave him a while, because I know from experience that it’s almost impossible to chase him down, and then I went looking for him. No luck. It was way after sunset when I got the car out and began looking up and down Fouche Gap Road. Zeke doesn’t really understand cars, so I was halfway expecting to come home with bad news. Instead I came home with Zeke.
I found him at the side of the road close to the house. I opened the back door and he jumped in. When I got him back home, I noticed that his stomach was absolutely full.
Full belly peeking out from beneath uncomfortable dog
That bulge right in front of his right rear leg is not normal for him, at least not since he lost 15 pounds. What looks like a bulge on his left side is his rib cage, which is prominent because of the way he’s lying.
He was clearly uncomfortable. He moaned and walked around the house. He would lie down next to the front door, which usually means he wants to go outside. I took him out but nothing happened at either end of the dog. Some time before we went to bed, he wanted to go out and sit on our elevated front walk. There he threw up what looked like a couple of pieces of raw stew beef and organ meat, possibly smallish livers.
I cleaned that up and let him back inside. A little while later when we were in the bedroom, he started making the noise that dogs do when they’re getting ready to vomit. I couldn’t get him outside, but at least he threw up on the tile in the dining room instead of the bedroom carpet. It looked pretty similar to the earlier sample, but without livers and with more fat.
Later still (I didn’t get much sleep Monday night), he went out on the front walk again, where he vomited a larger portion of whatever he ate. It still looked like he had found and eaten someone’s stew beef.
Even later, he wanted to go out, so I got up from the bed, put on a jacket and walked him around the house. I didn’t bother to put pants on over my short pajama bottoms. I don’t recommend that. Zeke didn’t do anything other than sniff the air. Looking for more raw meat, I guess.
I am pretty sure he didn’t catch and eat an animal, because there was no sign of fur or bones. All that came out, other than the possible organ meat, looked like fresh, red beef that you might see in the grocery store. I started worrying about someone trying to poison coyotes, but it had been long enough since he ate that, at least based on some Web research, he should have already started showing signs of strychnine poisoning. Whatever it was, he apparently got rid of enough of it that he was able to sleep for most of the night, which is more than I can say for myself.
Today for breakfast he got a few individual pieces of dog food instead of his normal portion. By lunch he seemed more like his old self, and by tonight he seemed almost recovered, although he didn’t eat the two dog biscuits he normally does. He mouthed one unenthusiastically for a while, and then Leah picked up the second and put it away. Right now, he is still lying next to the front door instead of in his bed.
I don’t think he’s quite over it yet. I would like to think he learned a lesson, but that would be fooling myself.
Something like this happening to one of my dogs would drive me crazy with worry. But they’re suburban dogs, used to a canned life, so I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen to them.
Pablo — This has happened often enough that we are almost used to it. So far there have been no serious consequences, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be. I wish we had a fenced yard, but it would probably have to look like a prison yard to keep Zeke in. He already climbs over the expensive metal gate we had made to keep him confined to the front walk. When I used to hear people say that you could never let a greyhound off the leash, I thought that was ridiculous. I thought you could always train a dog not to run away. But that seems not to be the case.
How is the lad this morning?
Minnie — Zeke seems to be his normal self now. His appetite is back, and that big lump in his stomach has gone away. I have been monitoring him. He hasn’t vomited any more, but the output from the other end of the dog has been greater than normal for the last 24-36 hours.
Glad to read in the comments that Zeke is feeling better. What a scare. He really could have been inadvertently poisoned.
Robin-Andrea — Scare, indeed. He scares us when he does his disappearing routine. I still can’t figure exactly what he found to eat or where he found it.