a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Aced Blood Test but Not So Hungry

Friday, February 21, 2003

Aced Blood Test but Not So Hungry

Remington studied really hard and passed this morning's blood test with flying colors--43%, solidly in the middle of normal. So no bleeding's going on now. They did chest x-rays but the doctor is out today so we won't know how the fluids in the chest are looking until Monday.

He's rarin' to go on walks, but still prefers to lie down and rest most of the time.

He ate more than half a can of canned yuck* for dinner last night, but that's only about half of his regular serving. This morning he sniffed it but wouldn't eat any, nor kibble. He snarfs down the doggie junk food strips offered by the vet techs, and freeze-dried liver treats, and sucks up the chicken baby food I offered him.

So I'm worried about the loss of appetite. He's not that active, I understand that, and he does get some goodies, but that never stopped him from being excited about meals before, no matter what they consisted of. I tried smearing chicken baby food all over chunks of canned yuck, which didn't fool him for a minute. He nosed them to find places where it was thick enough to lick off the baby food without actually ingesting any molecules of canned yuck, but wanted nothing to do with the rest of it.

Guess I'm going to have to buckle down and boil up more chicken for him. His weight is down to 50.8 today, which is almost 2 lbs less than it had settled in at after his operation.

We're doing agility this weekend in San Martin, so it's not a long drive away and we can sleep at home at night. Since I retired Rem Tuesday, he won't be participating, but I've been told there are horses at the site, so we can go out and look at livestock instead, which is definitely high on his A-list of activities. Sheep and cows are better, but horses will do in a pinch.

*canned yuck (kand yuk): n Special canned dogfood designed for dogs with cancer, which he thought was infinitely better than kibble for a while. Smells to high heaven. The mom of Sparky (who also has cancer) calls it Roadkill. Sparky got tired of it eventually, I believe (I'm sure I'll be corrected if that's not true) but I'm not sure whether Rem is tired of it specifically or just of anything ordinary, which this has become.

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