Boy, the trials of dog ownership. 

During the night of Saturday Apr 1, and all Sunday, Buddy became sick.  He was throwing up everything he would ingest - even water.  Monday the vet thought gastritis, typically treated by withholding food and water for a day.  Tuesday he still couldn't hold anything down so they admitted him at the vet clinic. 

Doc now thought he might have an obstruction in his intestines.  They put him on intravenous fluid (he was real dehydrated by now) and waited to see if he would pass it.  Then doc called me Wednesday night to say Buddy hadn't passed anything but he was beginning to have diarrhea, so the doc figured his intestines weren't blocked after all.  The doc thought it was simply a gastric problem and he'd probably be okay and ready to go home in a couple days. 

It was an incredible relief and a short-lived one.  The doc called first thing Friday to say Buddy wasn't any better and they felt exploratory surgery was needed.  The doc was suspecting something was terribly wrong, possibly major cancer.  He said I should come in and see Buddy before the surgery.

SO, I had to go potentially say goodbye to my dog.  It would have been hard under any circumstance, but what made it worse was Buddy really didn't ACT sick.  When he first saw me, he ran over and buried his face in my stomach and stuck tight against me.  I got an overview from the doc on what he'd be doing, and gave him a phone number where I could be reached in case the doc needed me to make a decision once he saw what was going on.  And then I left.  When I was ready to leave, and the doc took Buddy's leash to lead him away, Buddy pushed himself hard against me, spread out his front paws stiff-legged and absolutely refused to budge from my side.  The doc told me to leave and then they'd take him away.  So that's how I left him.

I went home to wait by the phone, the doc said they'd call me around 10:30 or 11:00am.  After 11:00 I still hadn't heard anything, which was kind of a relief since I was assuming if they'd found him full of terminal cancer they'd have called right away.  They finally called around 11:30 to tell me they'd found the head of a rubber duck in his small intestine!  It was a blockage after all. 

They kept him a few more days so they could verify his intestines had started to work again, and keep an eye on his recovery.  He finally came back home yesterday (Thursday) after 8 days in the hospital.  Everything is looking good - he's very active, the incision isn't red or inflamed, he's eating like crazy, and he's had good solid bowel movements.  I never thought I would be happy over my dog's bowel movements.  And he's ecstatic to be home, he won't hardly leave my side.  In fact he's being extremely possessive over me, a couple times snarling at Joshua when he comes near (like a dog guarding a bone).  I think we're over that phase however. 

The piece of toy they removed did indeed look like the head of a rubber duck, blue with a yellow beak made of a soft flexible rubber.  It was not from any toy around our household, but I'm not excusing myself - I've had tons of toys torn apart over the past few years, from either him or Joshua.  Just not that one.  I'm not going to waste words about "lessons learned", figure it out yourself.

It sure is good to have him lying beside me again while I work on my PC.

Here's Buddy showing off his incision: