Our Poor, Old Man
It was about 4:00 pm on Saturday. I had just put the rest of the dirty dishes into the dishwasher when I heard a retching sound coming from the family room. I look to my right and there is Red standing over the largest pool of vomit I had ever seen. His back was arched like a cat’s and his abdomen was sucked in as if in pain. I ran to him and pulled him away from the mess, petting his head and comforting him in the process.
Little did I know that this was the beginning to a very long evening. Red did not stop getting sick until 5am the next morning. We tried everything from bland food, to milk, to water and nothing calmed his stomach. It got to the point where he couldn’t even keep down water. After hours of trial and error, we started administering water by spoonfuls at a time. One spoonful…wait 15 minutes…make sure he doesn’t throw it up, then another spoonful…wait 15 minutes…make sure he doesn’t throw up. This process over and over again until I was relatively sure he wasn’t going to dehydrate while we were sleeping, which is sadly enough what my family’s dog died of when I was in high school. At 5am, I fell asleep on the floor with my hand on Red’s chest. Every so often I’d startle awake, holding my breath and waiting for the rise and fall of his chest.
Red woke up the next morning feeling much better, but just to be sure, instead of dog food, we fed him plain oatmeal in small increments. And by the afternoon, he was bouncing around playing tug of war with Luna. I still have no idea why or what made Red so sick…maybe it was the bone I gave him earlier that day. Maybe he just had some sort of virus…but at least he’s feeling better. And now I can sterilize the apartment and attempt to get that sour vomit smell out of here. So far–unsuccessfully.
