Puppy Poop and Perspective

There's nothing like 12 weeks of puppy diarrhea To put your life in perspective.

That's what I've been doing since early July:  getting some serious perspective on my life.  Because back in early July, I adopted a sick puppy.  Well, I didn't actually adopt him right away. It started out with a two-week dog-sitting gig, and ended up as a sick puppy adoption.

Lucky, at the vet, looking apprehensive. 

Lucky is the brother of my friend John's dog, Tabs.  The parents of said brothers,  belong to John's friend Clayton, as did Lucky, at the time.  Clayton was in the process of moving and I agreed to keep Lucky and his dad Ryker until the move was complete.

Day one I knew I'd taken on more than I expected.  Because, you see, Lucky had a poop problem. Specifically, he had a liquid poop problem.  All over the house. This in itself is upsetting enough, but when you factor in the truly unearthly smell of this poop, you have a really exceptional puppy poop experience.

All over the house.

Coccidia.  Little fuckers. 

So, I took Lucky to the vet, sure that he had worms and there would be a quick fix.  What he had was coccidia, a single-celled critter that lives in the intestines of dogs and causes diarrhea, mainly in puppies because they have not yet built up an immunity to the little buggers.  It's harder than hell to get rid of, both in the dog and in the environment.  Believe me, I've been fighting this battle for  more than 12 weeks.  The best way I've heard of to get rid of coccidia in your environment is to burn it down, apparently. Though a 10% ammonia solution may or may not work.  Freezing, apparently, doesn't do it... just puts them in a cryogenic state from which they will presumably wake up mad as hell and eager to reproduce.

We are currently battling round four of coccidiosis in Lucky.  Many hundreds of dollars have been spent on Albon (the sulfa drug that doesn't even kill them, just suppresses their ability to reproduce, the little fuckers), various antibiotics (to kill the bad bacteria that also colonize Lucky's intestines because his immune system is suppressed by the coccidia) and probiotics (to replace good bacteria).  I have spent countless hours on my hands and knees, in rubber gloves, scrubbing liquid puppy poop out of my carpet.

Three times now we seemed to have prevailed, as evidenced by wonderful, adorable, oh-so-pleasant and easy-to-pick-up-off-the-rug solid puppy turds, lying like Tootsie Rolls on my rug.  (It's amazing how excited I can get about solid dog poop on my carpet these days.  There's that perspective I was talking about.)  These victories were short-lived however, and the Squirts returned each time.

After nearly a two-week remission, during which time I became foolishly confident that this time we had won, the little demons are back. Off we go with another sample to the vet, more Albon, more probiotic.  They should name an exam room after Lucky.  Or maybe, more appropriately, a bathroom.

This time the vet is sending the sample off to The Lab for further testing to discover exactly what species of coccidia we're dealing with  (kaching!).  This will tell us if he's getting reinfected from his own poop in the yard, or if he's getting it from some other source such as birds or rabbits.  Stay tuned. I suppose it matters... but the fact is that Lucky is a veritable vacuum in the back yard, Hoovering up bugs, leaves, grass, bits of trash, bark, dirt, and whatever else he comes across.  He also digs for gophers.  So unless I'm prepared to pave over my yard or go over the whole thing with a flame-thrower (which frankly I'm considering at this point), I'm screwed.

So, I urge you to learn from my example and benefit from the hard-won perspective I have gained:  If you're not scrubbing liquid puppy poop out of your carpet, you're doing pretty damned good.