Fixing a Broken Cracker

"It's important to protect my eyes while I snoopervise Juicy's laser therapy. Plus, all the chicks dig a guy in cool shades."

Typically, Loki is the healthy one of my two fur-kids. Lately, he's been a little down. After the whole tapeworm debacle, he had GI distress. The medication for the de-wormer upset the flora in his GI and C. perf (clostridial) which is normally found in dog GI, took over, giving him a lot of mucous poops and almost an inability to wait until his favorite bush to do his business. You see, Loki is a "high bush" pooper. He likes to find the biggest, tallest bush and bomb it. But with this infection, he couldn't even hold it for going off the trail and would just pop it out in the middle of the sidewalk. He was clearly  unhappy with that, I could see the expression on how unhappy he was to poop in a walking space. He's a very clean dog and it distressed him.

Since it was their 10 and 11  year anniversary this year (I missed Juno's in August, I'm a bad mom), I spent a good fortune on their senior check ups. I waited til Mr. Wild Dingo got home from a business trip to drop the bill bomb on him and deflected the news with a glass of wine and cheese along with a war movie. Anyhoo... blood panels for both dogs came back looking great but Loki's poop panel showed the C.perf infection. Juno had evidence of it as well but it's within normal levels. So he went on Tylan and a bland diet to reduce the load of C. perf. and firm up his poops.

All was going well and after two weeks, his poop got nice and firm, until this happened:

"It's an addiction. I promise to go to BA meetings, as long as I can bring my bully sticks."

Yes, that's what he's proposing Internet: bully sticks at a Bully stick Anonymous meeting. The cracker sure knows how to get his way. He promised me his belly was fine, but after this bully his belly gurgled for almost a week and he couldn't eat much. Poor guy is getting to an age where his stomach acids can't break down bully sticks very fast. On top of that I have to cook his raw food. So per vet's orders, I spent yet another week giving him acid reducer, plus keeping him on the Tylan and giving him a very bland diet of chicken, rice, sweet potatoes. And we've both gone cold turkey on the bullies (meaning, I won't give in no matter how much he begs). Each night he's been laying on my heated/infrared biomat and between that, his diet and time, he's much better now.  He's now waiting for just the right tall bush and doing his very solid/non mushy/no-mucous business off trail. Thank dog and praise cheeses he's better now because I'm just about to get out of Dodge for a while and I really would hate to leave him while he felt sickie. But let's all look at this smoking bully photo with nostalgia to remember the carefree days of being able to eat what we want and not have to deal with any repercussions. Yup, it happens to dogs and humans alike. Juno and he are now on fully dehydrated raw and/or cooked meat/veggies diet. Juno's energy has really changed with the diet too and she's bouncier than ever. But Loki joins me an even more strict diet (no bullies for him, no sugar for me) to maintain optimum crackery. After all, what good is a cracker if it's broken?