Emergency!

Everything came to a head on Thursday night.

Jamie had eaten only half his daily allowance without much enthusiasm. Then at half past five, he vomited it all up onto the carpet. He then spent the next half hour retching and rushing around the garden trying to find a hiding place in his distress. When the shivering and retching did not stop, I dialed the vet. It was half an hour before closing time.
I bundled both pups in the car and fretted my way through rush hour traffic to the surgery.

By sheer coincidence, my puppy trainer was there and she used her Tellington TTouch techniques to calm Jamie down as I poured out my woeful story. The TTouch was incredible as I literally felt Jamie's body gradually stop shaking. (It is something I definitely want to investigate further). I was so concerned that he had swallowed something that was causing a blockage or that his eating habits were a symptom of something seriously wrong.

The vet calmly examined Jamie, felt his abdomen and did some blood tests. He said there was nothing wrong with the blood results and he could detect nothing serious in his stomach except that he had diarrhea. He gave Jamie an injection for nausea and vomiting and told me to watch him overnight. If he continued vomiting to bring him back. But otherwise not to worry and to give him some tablets to stabilise his stomach. As far as the non-eating issue was concerned, he said Jamie was in excellent condition and I should not stress too much about it unless his condition deteriorated.

Poor Jemma had been waiting patiently in the car when Jamie and I stepped out the vet's surgery into the night. As I left I saw a woman weeping, silhouetted in the vet's window. Her dog was being put down.

The fright over Jamie and my empathy with that woman bubbled to the surface and I cried all the way home.