My sick puppy

Jake has had a rocky few days. We have been in and out of the vet and he is now taking five medications, including the one he was already taking for his pyroderma. Monday night, we realized that Jake has a runny nose and is sneezing so I took him in to the vet yesterday morning and she warned me that a lot of SPCA dogs have been coming down with distemper. Distemper is definitely not a disease you want your dog to have (not that you want your dog to have any disease) because there is not much the vet can do to help your dog through the disease. Especially once it gets to the later stages, your dog starts having seizures and has to be put to sleep. Puppies are really susceptible to this condition because they have not had their full rounds of shots and they have weak immune systems. She said, however, that it was too early to tell and that for now we needed to treat him for upper respiratory problems. She prescribed him two medicines for an infection and an antihistamine in case it is allergies. Let me tell you, two of these medicines are pills and it is not an easy feat getting Jake to swallow them. Last night and this morning we tried peanut butter and failed miserably so tonight we are going to try sticking them in cheese.

We are also not allowed to have him around any dogs whatsoever or around any other dog's poop so we are not potty training Jake in the grass anymore, but now on a potty pad. I honestly feel bad for Jake because we completely changed his world around not going out to go potty. Yesterday was the first day with the potty pads and he definitely has pooping on them down, but urinating is a different story. He has urinated on them twice and maybe fifteen times off them. Mike and I went through a bottle of urine gone in a week and at $11 a pop, we are not pleased with this. Mike and I have had many conversations recently about watching our urine gone and paper towel usage. Let me note that Mike and I never had a problem with paper towel usage before we started this puppy adventure and certainly never talked about it.

To make matters worse, Mike discovered last night that Jake has tape worms. Our evening kind of went like this: I walk in the door from class and Mike says, "Becky, I found a worm in Jake's poop." followed by uncontrollable crying from me because I thought that finding worms in poop meant that he has heart worms. Then Laura's sister, a vet major, set me straight (HOLLA HANNAH!) and gave me a project to get Jake the medicine he needs to get over tape worms. The most frustrating part of all of this is that a stool sample was taken last week from Jake and they said that it came back clear, but now I am learning that it doesn't matter what is going on with your dog today, tomorrow can be a completely different ball game. My one prayer is that I don't come home tonight to find another puppy problem. I just want Jake to be healthy and there is nothing more bothersome in my life right now than coming home to a sick puppy.

I had plans to go to Dallas this month, but I guess it will have to wait till we get a little more sure of Jake's condition because I don't want poor Capri (Jenny's dog) to get sick, especially since she already has Addison's disease. I could use a prayer from all you readers out there that Jake's problems get sorted out within the next couple weeks and he doesn't have anything more serious.