A Sick Coach (now on the mend)

By Fred
The big-dog party Saturday night was pretty exciting, but our normally rambunctious little Coach was unusually quiet under the table all night--understandably, so we figured, after the long day at the walkathon (we must have walked 3 or 4 miles in all). But Coach was already sick. We just didn't know it yet.

A panorama shot of the banquet room.

So we drove home from the party and got right into bed. My allergies were colliding with a cold for a perfect storm in my head. And then, at around 1 am, I heard Cheryl talking to Coach--he had just thrown up.

Let's be clear. Cheryl is the one on middle-of-the-night patrol. When our puppies are little she takes them out for potty breaks at 2 am, and she is up like a rocket at the first sound of distress. Her little engine is wound up tight, while mine is not so much. So even if I had not been sick Saturday night, she still would have been the one to get up. But I was sick, and it is an essential fact for this narrative (if only to make me feel less like a slacker).

Coach threw up several times during the night and he was no better by Sunday morning, so Cheryl took him to the emergency vet. The diagnosis: gastroenteritis. She brought him back home. He was not at all well. Very quiet. Very un-Coachlike. By evening time he still wouldn't eat or drink despite all of Cheryl's encouragement, some of which was extremely creative and compelling (no wonder she can talk me into doing things). He was really sick, poor guy.

A picture of Cheryl encouraging Coach to have some food.

By Monday morning Coach still wouldn't eat or drink, not a bit, so I took him to spend the day with Dr. Woodman. By Tuesday, he was only a bit better, but he would at least sip some water and we could see some improvement, and finally today Coach seems more like himself again. He's eating and drinking, though he has a way to go still.

We don't realize what a bright spark is inside our puppies until that spark goes a little dim. Humans can reach out for sympathy and whine and blow loudly into tissues, but this little guy breaks our heart without trying.