Jeter: My parents always say that they wish we can talk….
Alanis: Aren’t we talking through this blog?
Jeter: I guess that is true, but be quiet. Last Thursday night, I started to feel ill. I didn’t throw up or anything like that, but I suddenly went from playful dog to dog that didn’t want to do anything.
Alanis: It was weird, and I could tell our parents were a bit worried about you. Jeter went to sleep on Thursday night, and barely wanted to move on Friday……
Jeter: Yep. I was just out of it. I would get up to eat (they were so relieved that I had my usual appetite!), but I didn’t want to do anything else. I didn’t want to play with Alanis. I didn’t want to follow mommy everywhere, which is my normal routine. I just wanted to sleep.
Alanis: Every chance our parents get, they go on Christmas light tours around New Jersey. They drive around, looking at houses, for hours on end. This can be a whole blog post on its own, but the point I am making here is that Jeter slept through the entire tour on Friday night. Usually, he likes to look out windows, move around the back seat, and just take it all in. On Friday, he just wanted to sleep. And sleep. And sleep. At one point, I put my head on his head. Was I sensing that Jeter wasn’t feeling well? Probably. We may fight in this blog, but we are still close…
Jeter: Be quiet with your sappy crap. Anyway, my Daddy went out on Thursday for the sole purpose of going to the store to get chicken breast to boil. This has happened before where they have put me on a bland, boring chicken & rice regimen….
Alanis: You showed them, though! You refused to eat the rice!
Jeter: Yeah, they have me on a GRAIN-FREE kibble diet, and yet that moron daddy decides to give me rice as part of my “recovery” meals. Nice job, Einstein. I don’t eat grains, so leave that garbage out of my bowl.
Alanis: Poor Jeter was so hungry…
Jeter: I kept looking at my bowl for MORE. I was obviously a hungry dog, with no idea on exactly what they were doing. Was I being punished? Did they no longer like me? What was the point of this exercise? I felt so sad…
Alanis: And they kept you on the diet all weekend!
Jeter: Yep! Daddy, being the meanie that he is, wouldn’t give the green light for Mommy to start giving me some kibble again 🙁
Alanis: I was getting kibble! It was soooooooooo yummy, Jeter…
Jeter: You are such an idiot.
Alanis: An idiot that got to eat KIBBLE!
Jeter: Yeah, whatever. Go outside and stare at a fence for 30 minutes, like you do every single day.
Alanis: I will do that with a stomach filled with kibble!
Jeter: Go away. I finally got some kibble with my Monday dinner, and it was so yummy. I am still not back to full kibble meals (Daddy bought enough chicken to feed a family of 8 for a month, never mind one dog trying to get better. Ugh. I am never eating chicken again after this exercise)
Alanis: Yes you will – we are dogs, after all. Dogs sometimes eat their own poop. Why would we ever turn down CHICKEN?
Jeter: True that. After a few days of being down for the count, I am slowly working my way back to being the excitable pooch I have always been. I am 8 now, so sometimes my body just won’t let me do the things it was able to do when I was 1. But I am still a hyper Golden Retriever, and I want to continue playing and being a goofball.
Alanis: I love all sides of Jeter, but that is my favorite side.
Jeter: There you go with the sap again. Sigh.
Me: I think I have said this so many times that you may be tired of reading it: Nobody knows your dog better than you do. Dogs typically don’t have “bad days” because they decide they want to be lazy. They have bad days because something isn’t feeling right, whether it be an injury, something they ate, or even being sick. We think Jeter’s issue had to do with something he ate (even though his appetite was still fine, his enthusiasm wasn’t at its normal level), though the leg injury he suffered a few weeks ago may have also flared up. We will never know. We gave him nothing but boiled chicken all weekend, and he took one day off from going for a walk. If he still wasn’t feeling well after the weekend, we would have called the vet. He has been able to recover though, and we will be increasing his meals back to normal levels over the coming days.