This past week has been very stressful. About 12 days ago Hootie came down with a mild diarrhea - didn't seem to be anything to be too concerned about, except that it just wasn't clearing up. She was wormed again in case she had parasites, but having been wormed 4 times before this, plus having had her Interceptor heartworm pill a few weeks ago, I didn't really think that was the issue. Last Tuesday it still hadn't cleared up, so Joe put her on a course of Flagyl. On Wed she seemed to feel a lot better, ate like a pig although she still had loose poop - but Wednesday overnight, she went downhill fast with several watery episodes during the night. I made an appointment for Thursday afternoon, but around 10 am she let go with pure blood, so I rushed her right in.

An exam showed a slight temperature, blood was drawn for testing, but everything seemed normal. She had several more small bloody episodes there. She was pumped full of fluids and was given a barium type paste so progress through the intestines could be watched. All seemed to be okay...things were moving along fine. Blood work came back around 4 pm, which showed an infection, so Dr. Luz decided to add some amoxicillin along with the Flagyl. I was allowed to bring her home for the night, but told to bring her back first thing for another xray. She seemed to do better, although she wouldn't eat a thing, then Friday morning about 10 minutes before I was going to bring her back in, she shot out pure blood again.

Dr. Joe was in and both her and Luz felt something that hadn't been there the day before - xray showed a suspected blockage in the area where the small and large intestine meet. Off to surgery Hootie went! I was not happy to find she had an intussusception, where the intestine telescoped in upon itself and caused a blockage. Fortunately it must have happened very shortly before I brought her back in, and Joe said the surgery went well. However, her intestines were packed with wood chips!! Now the pups have had wood chips in their pen since they were about 6 weeks old - what on earth possessed her to eat a pile of them at this point? I guess we'll never know.

About 10 year ago, Flyer's littermate had an intussusception, and the day after surgery the intestine telescoped again...giving us no choice but to put her down because there was simply too much damage. I was horrified that this had happened to Hootie and all I could think of was the nightmare with Ziggy. Everyone at the hospital said Hootie was doing great and they didn't expect any problems with her recovery. She stayed overnight Friday night, and I picked her up Saturday around noon. No sooner did I get her outside than she went to some fresh mulch and let loose a movement of water and more wood chips. I freaked out and ran back in to have one of the techs check it out. She said this was normal and she expected Hootie would have several more movements like this - a few little spots of blood were to be expected, but if there was substantial blood, I needed to give Joe a call.

I was so upset about this I was making myself sick! I must have checked on her every 10 minutes all day Saturday, and got up several times during the night. Hootie seemed to be feeling good, she was eating her special diet, although her stool was still all water. Sunday night it had a bit more substance to it - I was hopeful. Yesterday things improved a bit more, and this morning it was almost toothpaste-like - hurray! I am hoping we have turned the corner here and that normal poop will happen tomorrow. She will be eating the special diet for some time to come, but as nasty as it looks, she seems to be enjoying it. She has lost about 6 pounds so has some catching up to do. She's eating 4 meals a day and licks the bowl clean each time, which is great.

So fingers crossed for Hootie that she makes a full recovery! She's bouncing around again and is acting like nothing ever happened, even though she's got a 6 inch incision on her tummy. Everyone think positive thoughts for her, okay?