I rarely post in this thread, so I figured I'm allowed to make this one a long one.
So as usual, new puppy got me up at 6:30 sharp for his pee and walk Sunday morning. Then I spent another half hour letting him jump all over me playfully, while I did my best to keep him quiet and let others sleep. (He tends to bark loudly when he wants to play and he is denied,)
After breakfast, my wife and I did a five mile walk through the park and through the neighborhood. It's a route that I've run many times but my knees have been telling me to walk more often than run lately.
As we got fairly close to our house, I pointed out some folks who were in their back yard, and I mentioned how frequently I seem to smell them in their backyard getting stoned, no matter the day or hour. My wife decided that she must become friends with them. I pointed out that many to most Americans (Canadians even more!) find the smell of weed to be a "real problem."
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/americans-smell-marijuana-public-streets-canada Ironically, within five minutes we came across another neighbor trimming his hedges with a loud motorized lawn tool, and my wife started vehemently complaining about noise polution. Hey, I don't like all that noise either, buy I can understand suburbanites wanting to make their lawns look nice...for some of them it's a way of life. Also ironically, my wife also complains that I don't do anything to make my yard look as nice as other neighbor's yards (buy me a leat blower and some trimmers for Xmas!) After about 90-120 minutes (whatever it takes for middle aged people to walk five miles, I didn't keep track), we arrived back home to sleeping puppy and daughter.
By then, it was about lunch time for puppy. I gave him his dry dog food lunch, and when he got up to eat it, he promptly threw up and started stumbling around like he was drunk on all of the love in the house. In the vomit, I noticed a sliver of a ceramic bowl that had been broken earlier in the morning. I thought I had swept up all the pieces, but apparently I had not. Finding that in his vomit, and seeing how much he was staggering, I was immediately fearful. He seemed interested in eating his lunch, but he seemed too out of it. My wife added some leftover salmon (the food, not the band) to the mix, and he promptly managed to eat all of the salmon but left all of the dog food. Then a few minutes later, he vomited again, staggered around, and fell asleep. Or maybe just laid down. As soon as there was movement in the house, he was doing his best to be playful in normal puppy form. But he obviously wasn't right.
And things just continued to not be right. He was sick for 24 hours once before, but none of this staggering that had come on suddenly. I waffled, but then decided to call the emergency weekend vet. They said best bring him in. My wife declared she was too frazzled from her workweek to possibly go with me. So off we went, me unkempt, unshowered, and dressed im my Sunday worst, him a mix of erratic and listless, and in 25 minutes we were there. I was hoping it would be at an easy to park strip mall, but instead it was in a bustling urbanish zone with difficult parking. Finally, I found a spot and had to carry his already 22 pound slumping ass for a couple of blocks.
We received prompt, friendly, professional support immediately. Well, after he leaked urine all of their floor upon arrival. Based on symptoms, the doctor declared that the ceramics were not the issue...that it appeared it was likely drug ingestion or possibly much, much worse...antifreeze ingestion. I texted my wife, and she assured me that there's no way he could have gotten to her weed. And I was quite certain there's no way he got to my Viagra.
I also asked her to check the garage to see if there was any way he could have gotten into the big puddle of antifreeze that is on the floor while trudging through the garage to go potty in the backyard (I kid, I haven't opened a bottle of antifreeze in years....but since it's life and death, you can't be too sure) Her first reaction was "I'm not looking around in that messy garage." but after some back and forth I convinced her she had to, and she sent me a picture of a highly placed, unopened bottle of antifreeze as evidence that there was not evidence (of loose antifreeze.)
But I guess there's always a chance he slurped some from a puddle on a walk. So I didn't want to rule out the one thing that might kill him, especially since I was being told by my wife that it couldn't be any of the other options.
The doc explained all of the tests they could do and the costs. He also said I could go nearby to CVS and for another $40 on top of the $725 that it would eventualy cost me, get a drug testing kit to see what specific drug he have have ingested (if indeed it was a drug.)
So I sauntered into CVS on a Sunday afternoon, with my Neil Young haircut, old hoodie, shorts, beat up running shoes, and unshowered body and asked the cute young teenage girl worker where they keep the drug tests, carefully explaining that the drug test is for my dog, not for me. With a smirk on her face, she pointed me in the right direction. Note: I call her "cute" in a father of a cute teenage girl kind of way. Not in a Anthony Kiedis/Jimmy Page in their 20's kind of way. At any rate, my heat jumped a little when I saw my receipt contained a 40% off my next single item puchase offer (almost as exciting as Stubhub on a Friday afternoon!), and I wondered if I could return the kit and buy it again with the coupon. Probably not.
Back to the vet I went. They told me the blood test had told them nothing, but things were looking a little less like it was antifreeze. They also said they were having trouble getting him to pee, so why don't I go home or take a walk. I opted for the latter, though I was too nervous and scared to either eat or enjoy the glorious weather. After an hour or so, I headed back, but still no pee. If only they had caught it when he went all over the floor upon arrival. Again, they suggested I could go home and they'd call me, but since it was nearly an hour round trip, I said I'd wait it out. They also began telling me that they would call around to try to find a specific test that test for antifreeze, though it still seemed unlikely.
So I waited, and waited, and waited. And agonized and agonized and agonized. Then, nearly five hours after arrival, and having missed lunch and the entirety of the US Open Men's Final, there was a knock on the door. The doctor came in an announced that puppy had tested positive for THC, and he was improving, and it was safe to send him home. I had to ask the doctor if THC meant marijuana, and he confirmed it did. I texted my psycho wife the results, and her immediate reaction was that she was "kind of suspicious it was planted."
