I'll be in Texas before I go to sleep tonight! (Well, just Amarillo. But Texas is Texas, regardless of how bad it smells.)
Sarah and I are driving down tonight so we can beat the big scary snowstorm that's going to swallow the entire state of Colorado tomorrow. We're taking Brutus with us because we discovered that the one non-terrifying hotel in Amarillo* accepts pets at no extra charge AND we are quicker at calling dibs than Gary is. (Gary only has one brother and one much younger sister, whereas Sarah and I are the younger half of a set of four, so we learned early on the importance of calling dibs if you cared about things like eating dinner or sitting in a chair.) So Gary gets to make the 12 hour drive through the blizzard tomorrow night with the dog with the drinking problem.
Bravo's been doing this thing where he drinks and drinks and drinks until he blows up like a water balloon and we don't really know why. The vet says it's either a behavioral thing or he has a really rare condition called diabetes insipidus. (If it's the second, he'll have to take medication for the rest of his life, and if it's the first...I'm gonna kill him.) So they told us to do this thing where we had to figure out how much water the two of them were drinking together each day (34 cups) and we're supposed to reduce that by half a cup each day until they get down to the normal amount for two dogs (12 cups) at which point we'll take him back to the vet and they'll do a water deprivation test to see which one it is. Sound like a pain in the ass? WELL IT IS.
And that is the story of how Gary got stuck with Bravo.
THE END
*It's the La Quinta off I-40 in case you're wondering. How did we deduce that it's the only safe place to stay in Amarillo? Through several rigorous tests of trial and error. (Man, I really wanted to backlink to the blog post I was sure I wrote about the time we almost got murdered at a Super 8...but it appears that post never actually got written. IT HAPPENED, OKAY? This was the closest thing to anectodal evidence I could find. BUT, to redeem myself, while I was looking for it I came across THIS post from back in the day when my blog used to be funny as opposed to mostly about my dog's health problems.)
1 comment:
It could also be what's called Cushing syndrome. My old dog had it. It's due to too much production of ACTH making him extremely thirsty. Does he seem ravenous when you put his food down or always hungry? They can do a dexamethasone suppression test or an ACTH stimulation test. If it is that then he just takes a pill every morning for the rest of his life. The medicine is something I had to pick up at a people pharmacy.
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