If I had not been so upset yesterday, I might have been able to figure out what was wrong with Bella--she was having a severe allergic reaction to her dog food. I finally figured it out this morning. She woke up like nothing had ever been wrong with her. Then she ate. Thirty minutes later she was acting cuckoo again. This time I noticed that her eyes were red, her nose was running, her neck and face seemed puffy, she sounded like she was snoring although she was wide awake, and she was wandering around the house like a space cadet, which is what used to happen when she got her DHLPP shot without having a shot of Benadryl first.
The light bulb finally went off. She's allergic to the food. She has been eating from the same bag of Solid Gold Holistique Blendz for almost a month, but up until Thursday she was eating it and taking a Zyrtec daily. I ran out of Zyrtec Thursday and only gave her half a Benadryl, which obviously wasn't enough to nuke the histamine response her body was having to one or more of the food's ingredients.
So this morning I gave her a whole Benadryl. I also ran downstairs, got the liquid Children's Benadryl and a dropper from her Tinkle Tonic bottle, and poured several droppers' worth of the liquid Benadryl down her throat. It's now three hours later, and she seems back to her old self. She's still panting a little, but I think that's from all the Benadryl I made her take.
Meanwhile, the bag of food is going in the trash. There was only about three bowls of it left anyway, but at this point I'm scared to let even Bailey eat it. From now on they'll be eating Iams. I'd rather her eat corn and by-products at this point than whatever it was she consumed this morning. Maybe now that Bella can breathe normally, I can breathe now too.
I swear I'm buying the dog a bubble to live in for Christmas.
