Not the Downtown Trip You'd Hope For

Monday January 5th

Travelling to pick up the boys required me to take the day off work, as they needed to be out of the clinic by 8am. My sister Elena came with me to assist. We sat in the waiting room and watched as dogs and cats were reinunited with their owners, at a lot of expense! $2000 for a cat, $3000 for a dog, with iv's coming out of the whazoo. Then finally it was my turn: $1800 later! Ouch....I was afraid that Guinness wouldn't even remember who we were, but that was put to rest when his tail started wagging like crazy and he snuggled up to us. Molson, on the other hand, you could tell was still very drained. Elena and I held the brothers together and you could tell they felt sheer happiness. Once we paid, we were told to immediately transfer to the downtown animal hospital. We were given an iv bag to take with us, and all of the appropriate health files. Molson looked like such a sad case with the iv in his tiny arm all bandaged up.

The pups snuggled together in the back seat right up until we parked the car. Elena got the luckier end of the deal carrying Molson. As soon as we began to walk to the clinic, Molson vomited a very projectile amount in the air. Elena managed to dodge out of the way just in time, with only a little bit hitting her jeans. This verified that he still needed to be observed overnight, but we still dreaded having to leave him all alone.

Entering the very busy clinic, we saw several familiar faces from the last location. Within minutes of checking in, one of the nurses whisked Molson away to be restarted on iv. The sadness set in again. We hated that he has been put through all of this trauma.

The rest of us were moved into an assessment room since we needed to be kept separate from all of the animals due to the high risk of transfer of the parvovirus. A new vet went over the whole history of the illness, stated they would keep Molson at least overnight, if not two nights.
I described how it seemed like they were improving, only to go downhill again later in the same day. She explained how parvovirus is like a rollercoaster. There are periods of recovery, followed by repeat of the awful stages. She believed that the worst was over, since the virus usually lasted abour 5 to 7 days. I felt so relieved.

We decided to keep Guinness at home since he had been free from vomiting and diarrhea for over 24 hours. As we carried him out, he was constantly whining and searching around for his Molson.

At home, Guinness seemed extra irritable with the absence of his brother. We tried to ease this as much as we could through play and attention. He continued to whine, and did more nipping than ususal. I didn't want to leave him alone, since he was used to having Molson with him all the time. This meant keeping Guinness company with yet another sleep on the couch. We spooned together on the couch for part of it.