Mood:  caffeinated

I walked into my house last night and was immediately hit with a horrible stench. When I walked in to let Potter out of his crate I saw what was causing the horrible odor. Potter had had diarrhea at some point yesterday. It was all over his crate, his fur, the wall and the carpet. I just stood there for a moment not knowing what to do or where to start. I finally decided to start with Potter. I took him outside to use the bathroom and he still had the runs. I then brought him back in and tried to give him a bath. It is hard to get 70lbs of dog in the tub and keep him there. I was finally able to get all the crap out of his coat and sent him off into the living room to dry while I tackled the rest of the mess. I bleach his crate and scrubbed the carpets and walls. Amazingly everything came out. Potter seemed to be feeling better and played most of the night. I took him out about 11PM and his stool wasn’t hard but it wasn’t like the watery stuff that had come out earlier, so I thought he was okay.

At 1AM Potter came in and got me out of bed in a panic so I rushed him outside. He still had the diarrhea but this time there was some vomiting. So I packed him up in the car and headed to the Doggy ER. I don’t know if it was the vet or my lack of sleep but I was a little snotty with the doctor. She immediately accused me of giving him table scraps. My dog ONLY eats dog food. He might get an occasional egg but Dr. Darth said that was good for him. Don’t assume I am a bad pet owner just because my dog is sick. She sort of looked at me like she didn’t believe me. She said, “Well something is making him sick.” You think? Maybe you should do your job and figure out what the problem is instead of standing there staring at me like an idiot. They ran some tests which took two hours and wasn’t really able to find out much. He had a slight temperature and some tenderness in his stomach but said the x-rays and fecal didn’t show anything abnormal. She said he might just have caught a stomach virus at the dog park. They gave him some bland food, a shot for the vomiting and told me to give him some Pepto Bismal every 6 hours and to watch for dehydration. We got out of there around 4AM and headed home where I crashed for an hour before having to get back up and come into work. I brought Potter with me so I could keep an eye on him. So far he seems okay. He is sleeping now but was walking around the office playing with everyone.

So with only about 2 hours of sleep I am not focusing very well. I have a stack of stuff on my desk and I just can’t get organized enough to start on anything. I feel useless and if I wasn’t taking off Friday I would just go home. I leave today at 3:30 so I am hoping with 7 cups of coffee and 3 chocolate chip cookies I will be able to make it that long.