So Piper was not doing very well this morning. She was acting strangely, shaking, and she wouldn’t go out to pee. When I finally convinced her to go out she went down the stairs she put her front end down leaving her back-end up. I immediately suspected some kind of bowel obstruction.
Deb put her on a leash and walked her out front to try to get her to pee. She did pee. Deb then said she thought she was constipated. She then said she was going to ‘disimpact’ her. I had no idea she knew how to do such things. Apparently, in a previous career Deb had worked with people who were paralyzed and who had to have their bowels manually moved.
Deb got out the gloves and the vaseline and proceeded to disimpact the pug. I held one end and after about 5 minutes of ‘manual’ stimulation of the lower bowel and lots of massaging to move things down Deb could feel something hard. After a bit she took her out to walk and she passed a little stone. She then had to have a bath which, never makes her happy. They then went off to the park for some exercise and some more bowel ‘stimulation.’
She is much better now. She has eaten today – rice and cooked pork to make it easy on her bowel. And we now know that Deb has a very interesting skill should it ever be necessary again!
Dispatches from the Swamp 