Hope all are well....
Neb became quite ill last Thursday night and was hospitalized in the 'ICU' from Thursday night to Sunday morning when we took him off the IV and home.
Suddenly on Thursday night he started throwing up (mostly clear bile-ish stuff) and then pooped in the hall (which he NEVER does) followed by him clearly starting to strain; I would take him out and having little blobs of diarrhea. He than became obviously in pain.
It goes without saying we took him to the vet.
(Note: The dogs are normally fed grain-free kibble as Luc can't have bones anymore due to his teeth. We rotate between a variety.)
The vet suspected pancreatitis or some sort of infection. Neb was admitted to the ICU and tests started (x-ray, blood work) along with antibiotics, pain killers, antacid, and a stomach protectant.
His temperature was low - 35.4C.
By the next morning his temperature had improved to 36.9C. It continued to improve through Saturday to pretty well normal.
The vet said his bloodwork showed the signs of a severe liver infection, a liver shunt, or I guess some sort of liver failure.
I didn't do as good of a job as normal asking questions because this was so sudden and scary I wasn't thinking straight. Still:
-vets all (3 at 24-hr clinic plus both vets at our regular clinic) ended up agreeing shunt was not the issue
-Neb had the compromised liver values
-test for pancreatitis came back normal
-Neb had blood in his feces Friday morning - they did a coaugulation test and if I recall correctly it was normal
-Neb had an effusion in his abdomen (largely receded by Saturday morning when x-rays repeated)
Neb had, on Tuesday I believe, gotten into the plastic bit that sits on meat styrofoam trays to collect blood (my partner left it in the recycling of all places). I know someone whose dog has eaten a number of those and been fine. The vets seemed to think it was theoretically possible that it had caused an infection but they didn't really seem to think so.
My mother-in-law is coming for dinner next weekend and we cleaned the bathtub with Scrubbing Bubbles cleaner - normally we would use baking soda (well, to be honest, normally we wouldn't clean it). I made sure to rinse off everything, but could he have somehow ingested a missed spot????????
Neb was started on small amounts of food Saturday morning and kept everything down. Since that time he's kept all food down and finally last night pooped (no blood). He's still on the meds I mentioned earlier.
We are taking him to the vet Friday (our regular vet) for follow-up bloodwork etc.
I honestly can't think of, other than the scrubbing bubbles, what Neb could've gotten into that could've caused this, and frankly, it was used 24hrs before he got sick and like I said, we rinsed it. He's always on-leash, so I can't think of anytime he would've accidentally ingested some antifreeze off the ground, for instance.
In the month leading up to this, Neb was obviously not feeling well Halloween day but he bounced back by the next day, and still hiked that day (we were on a backpacking trip). He threw up bile a couple of times, the first time I put it down to him getting a bit of the rabbit's hay, the second time, he'd had a smaller-than-normal breakfast.
But perhaps those were warning signs?
I've done some research but am still a little confused about how suddenly liver disease can onset. Is he presenting like a dog that could have liver disease, or does this appear more consistent with ingesting something toxic?
Teagan!