Coping When Your Dog Has the Big D 101

Towards the end of last week, I had to deal with a sick dog. Every time Bailey ate, his food ran through him about 15 minutes later. For three days, all it seemed like I could do was clean up liquefied doggy poo. When I wasn't cleaning, I was trying everything I knew how to do to, uh, stop the stinky flow. I fed Bailey bland food. I tried to feed him canned pumpkin. I gave him probiotics and Imodium AD, yet nothing would stop the Big D. I finally had to take him to the vet Saturday morning. A bottle of antibiotics, several shots full of fluid, and $68 later, and Bailey's digestive system is finally back to normal.

I figured since it's flu season, I probably won't be the only one whose dog has the runs. Thus, I've come up with these 10 tips or words of wisdom to help you through your own craptastic days:

1. When your dog is sick, it is pretty much a guarantee that the last place that you think he'll go is the first place, like all the way down the staircase.
   
2. It is also pretty much a guarantee that he will subsequently mistake your bed or your sofa for toilet paper.
   
3. Calling the diarrhea holy over and over again won't make it smell better, any more divine, or go away. It also won't summon choir bells, even if the mess makes you feel like someone is hitting your head with one.
   
4. Cleaning the diarrhea by hand is pointless. All you do is push the mess further into the carpet and create poo art. Case in point:
   
   
   
   If you squint hard enough and do a couple of shots before you look at it, you might even be able to see an image of the Virgin Mary.
   
5. Learn to make friends with your steam cleaner. I have. In fact, I have learned that my Hoover's favorite color is blue, that his favorite show is Clean House, and that he likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, just so long as he's not plugged in.
   
6. If you're going to boil chicken for your sick dog, make sure you remove the skin first. Otherwise, it could take hours.
7. If you're going to try to get your dehydrated dog to drink water, make sure you shut your blinds first. Otherwise, when you're on all fours pretending to lap water out of a bowl, your neighbors are going to think that you've either lost your mind or that you're practicing your audition for bad fetish porn.
8. Just because after three days of canine runs, you have grown immune to the smell does not mean that everyone else has. If you run into the grocery store to buy yet another box of rice and everyone you encounter backs up three feet, it's not fear of the swine flu. It's you and the crappy smell emitting from your pores.
9. Some people consider canned pumpkin a miracle worker when your dog is sick. If he has diarrhea, it stops him up. If he is stopped up, it starts things flowing again. However, if you buy three cans and your sick dog won't touch it, it is no longer a miracle worker. It's a waste of money.
10. When you have finally given up that canned pumpkin, chicken and rice, Pedialyte, and Imodium AD will work on your dog and you take him to the vet, be prepared for him to act 10 times better the minute you open the clinic's door. Then be prepared to sound like an idiot when you insist that his intestines had practically exploded all over the living room floor just 30 minutes before. Luckily for you, you won't smell like an idiot. You'll just smell like poo.