My dog wasn’t eating… she had obviously lost weight… she was so weak that she was having trouble getting out of her bed (even bad enough that she was laying in her own urine, and she’s completely house trained). I’m a nurse, so I should know what to do, right? Wrong. Other than taking her to the vet, I had no idea what was wrong. I even tried listening to her heart and lung sounds with a stethoscope, and heard an irregular heart beat (but the vet ended up saying it was normal inspiration-expiration changes, which sound more exacerbated on a dog)… so I obviously had no idea how to even assess her the only way I thought I knew how. I felt helpless.

I took her to the vet, where they loaded her up with the camel-hump of saline (they inject saline subcutaneously on dogs and the body absorbs it to rehydrate), an IM shot of steroids, and another of an antibiotic, along with drawing blood work and taking an xray. They gave me some extra-calorie dog food to help her gain back some of the weight she had lost and a prescription for oral antibiotics (and a bill for a few hundred dollars…ha). Turns out, she had a really bad respiratory infection, which I would have never guessed because she looked like she was breathing okay and didn’t have a cough of any sort. But, a few days after the visit to the vet, she was recovering nicely.

I know I’m not a veterinarian and I’m not expected to know how to diagnose or treat an animal, but it seems like the symptoms of a respiratory infection would be universal.

I guess I’m just lucky to have a very accommodating vet office, who snuck us in for an appointment and a dog who loves the heck out of me for taking such good care of her. (Photo credits to the boyfriend, who snuck the shot of me listening her to heart and lungs after I got in from the hospital the night she was really sick. Jinx, our puppy, is a 2 year old Boxer/Pit mix.)