Poor Puppy :(

My poor little Paris and I had a rough night last night.

She's always been a little sickly since I got her. Note, the little sickly. She eats, she plays, she loves. But she has always had a problem digesting food well. She always had diarrhea at least once a day - normally right before bedtime. At times it looked like it was getting better, and I was relieved. Unfortunately, it started getting worse again these past few days. And it didn't help that she threw up more than you could ever have thought would fit inside her little stomach.

After last night and this morning, I called the vet and took her in. They said that she could have something wrong with her colon or small intestine - the most common reason for chronicle diarrhea. But in order to do tests and diagnose her, they have to keep her for a couple of days. I'm gonna be awfully lonely :(

However, they literally just called me and said that they are 95% sure they found the problem - she has coccidia. This is a parasitic disease that is in the small intestine. It's very common in puppies because of their underdeveloped immune system. Some other causes are stressors such as new owners, travel and weather changes. According to Wikipedia, symptoms in young dogs are universal: at some point around 2-3 months of age, an infected dog develops persistently loose stools and diarrhea.Other symptoms may include poor appetite, vomiting, and dehydration. Coccidia infection is so common that any pup under 4 months old with these symptoms can almost surely be assumed to have coccidiosis.

The good news: it's easily treated by relatively inexpensive drugs. The bad news: they want to still keep her for a few days to insure that's what it is.

So the next couple of days are going to be quiet around the apartment, but I'm so relieved that she's getting treated and will be back home soon :)