Poorly Pup

Since having Calvin, I’ve been really lucky with him health wise. Yeah he’s thrown up the odd time in the night, as his stomach of steel has failed him, after he’s scoffed too many twigs, stones or eaten the fluff of his toys that he insists on destroying. However, this year he’s had two eye infections and just last week was struck down with gastroenteritis.

Being blind, I’ve found that I’ve struggled to know when he has been unwell, since there have been no obvious signs. For example, both times he had the eye infections, I hadn’t a clue until my parents told me that his eye looked red and gunky. Then there were the eye drops, not a chance would I have been able to do them myself, it took three of us to pin him down. He wasn’t too bothered about it going in his eye, he just wanted to eat the solution and kept his mouth wide open to try and catch it.

The gastroenteritis was new to me, I was home alone and he threw up four times within two hours. Only I didn’t realise, as I only found one batch. There was no indication that he wasn’t well, we’d been to the shops in the morning and he seemed himself. I took him to the vets once my dad got home and alerted me to the amount of sick, but the vet said he seemed fine and needed no treatment. I had no idea what to do when a dog is ill, so just took it. The next morning I trod in some more sick and was fuming that the vet said he was fine. This was the day I was meeting Jonathan Edwards and in an unfamiliar environment on my own with strangers, so Calvin was vital to me. I crossed my fingers that he would be ok when we were there and he was, but I felt guilty for working him and took him back to the vets straight after. We saw a different vet, he was given an injection, some rehydration powder for his water and some special food for the next few days. He was far from impressed that he had to miss a meal though!

It’s not pleasant knowing your dog is unwell, although Calvin has never seemed too bothered. He did make me giggle last week, he was obviously feeling a bit rough, but was dying to play at the same time, so he’d do a few moments of being hyper Calv and then flop down, realising that he didn’t have the energy. This occurred a few times, the blonde!

Calvin’s bouts of illness this year has reminded me of how valuable he is to my day to day life. It also concerns me that because of my disability I’m not always able to know there is a problem. It brings it home how important family is sometimes, even when you crave total independence. Here’s hoping my furry friend isn’t ill again anytime soon.