The Katzke Dog Diary

I’m sure there’s going to be a big chunk of that building with my name on it.

Eowyn kept waking me up last night (with a cold nose to the eyesocket and a lick to my chin) to let her out so that *she* in turn could go outside. I went out with her a few times and her poop was completely liquid — total diarrhea, punctuated with a few noxious farts. (I know it wasn’t her the night before because she slept in her kennel with the door closed that night.) When the vet opened in the morning, I called and got a walk-in appointment for this afternoon…

With Eo, our suspicion is that she’s caught Henry’s whipworms. (Once you get whipworms into an environment, it’s almost impossible to keep a dog from getting them. Even if you pick up poop immediately from the yard, it’s not possible to pick up the liquid stuff and eventually a dog will run through that patch of ground, and while cleaning their paws later will ingest some of the eggs.) I was probably irresponsible in letting her stay on Heartguard, which doesn’t worm Whipworms, and not switching her to Interceptor. The problem is that Interceptor, Revolution, Sentinel, etc. — none of those touch the eggs, and still allow them to hatch in the dog’s system… they just clear the worms as they hatch. Ivermectin, the active ingredient in Heartguard, won’t even touch them in nonclinical doses.

So — worm her with something that will definitely flush all the worms out, 24 hour fast to settle her stomach and let anything that’s gotten bloody in her intestines heal, and then a soft/wet diet for two days followed by getting her gently back on her regular food.