Voices of discontent

My girl Riko has been most affected by the confinement. During the past two weeks, she had refused to eat twice. The first time, she landed her at the vet because she vomited gastric juices and still refused to eat.

Faces of boredom

Movement Control Order for Kids

 It will be challenging to explain to the kids that we cannot go out so often now.

The Age of the Innocence is now Gone with the Wind

It's coming to three months since Hiro's surgery and weeks since his heartworm treatment, I was counting the days till Hiro completely finish his medication.

Recently, I noticed the boy has been losing weight rapidly. So much so that, his skull now has two prominent indentations on his forehead. He has lost his boxy face now. My self-investigation on the net had diagnosed it as some kind of Myositis from his physical symptoms. So, we went to the visit last Sunday.

After some blood test etc, the vet said that it is likely due to the prolonged anti-inflammatory meds that contains steroids, which he has been taking for the past months. The steroid medication is causing side effects like increased hunger. For the moment, he still needs to finish his course of medication to fight any cancer spread.

In spite of his apparent weight loss, his appetite has been voracious. He is seems to be constantly hungry.... even right after meals. In the early days when a walk in the garden meant Hiro smelling the flowers and fertilising the plants in the garden. Nowadays, he is foraging the grounds from fallen papayas and other unknown stuff. Last weekend, he went through my compost pots for prawn shells and egg shells!

Last Wednesday morning, he was unusually busy in the garden ... so much that he was late for breakfast. I went looking for him and found him in the bushes. A closer look found him with a rat in his mouth! No photos... too grossed out to capture the moment. I shouted for him to let go. The more I called out, the faster he wanted to swallow the rat. So there, he ate the rat like a snake. One big blood-less swallow.





So, we were back to the vet again.

Eating a rat can lead to many more dangers that I first thought. My first concern was whether he could digest the swallowed rat. Then, whether it was a dead or live rat that he ate. Due to his laid-back nature, I cannot think that he has the hunting instinct to catch one live. So, now the fear was if it was dead, it could have died from rat poison... and now being digested by the boy. The vet said I had to watch out for rat urine disease too....which will show symptoms of jaundice over the next few days.

So, Hiro was prescribe another series of antibiotics and anti inflammatory medication. It's been five days now. He seems to be OK. No signs of jaundice or other poisoning reactions. Still hungry.

During his first vet visit last December, he was 36 kg and he is at 32 kg now. It has been about one kilo loss, each time he is weighed recent vet visits. Now, we have to feed him lunch to compensate the weight loss.

Nowadays, walking in the garden has become more of a hunting outing for food. We are left with praying that he ate a healthy rat who had already did his morning pee before death.

Very Important Dog (VID) status

Hiro was back in the vet to resume his second and third heartworm injection. It was required to be taken on consecutive days (Monday and Tuesday). So, the boy spent those 2 days at the vet in the daytime under observation in case there was a reaction to the medication given.

He was mighty glad to see me during his pick-up! After the treatment, he was instructed to be under full house arrest. No outdoor walks till his next check-up which was in 3 months time.

On Thursday night, I noticed that he was settling down to sleep like he usually does when we got home. He kept coming to me as if something was wrong. I thought he was pacing about (at first, I thought he was still hungry) .... but after giving him some fruits, he continued walking about and not wanting to sit down. That's when I noticed that there was some swelling in his abdomen. This is probably causing him some discomfort to lie down.

Worried that it was some internal bleeding, we rushed to Gasing Hospital because it was already 10 p.m. Waited an hour. There was apparent swelling but the vet couldn't do much except to administer some anti-swelling tablets. Since the vet said that it did not appear to be life threatening, it was decided that he go and see his regular vet in the morning.

The next morning, we are back to his regular vet.They found at least 3 swollen areas on one side of his abdomen - the same side of his earlier mass cell tumour (MCT) surgery. Blood tests should normal levels except for his WBC (due to infection). For the moment, there is no signs of cancer cells.

So, he was kept under observation at the vet for the whole of Friday.

On Sunday, we are back at the vet again for a check-up. Most of the swollen areas have subsided except for the one near the MCT surgery area. So, his medication was extended for 3 more days.


With all these vet visits, I think my boy has achieved VID (Very Important Dog) membership status. I think he likes going to the vet.... except the bit that he has to stay in the "lock-up".