Day 15: Two weeks from adoption date

We are back to Friday (thankfully) and it has been exactly two weeks since I adopted Brook. I think it is safe to say that her life has changed drastically, some for the better, and unfortunately, some for the worse.

Last night she quickly lapped up and entire bottle of store brand "ensure" vanilla drink. She loved the stuff and I am so happy I found a link to a "ask the vet" website where a vet tech had suggested this to someone else whose dog was not eating. So we also gave her some Hill's Prescription A/D canine/feline wet food mixed with water. We were able to get her to eat about 30ml, so thought that was good and didn't force her to eat anymore. She also took her amoxicillin liquid without much problem.

We thought since she had been "cooped up" all day at the vet, it might be nice to let her get some fresh air. We walked outside and then carried her about 5 houses down the street. She is so calm and sweet, that she just rested her head on my shoulder. The body spasms subside slightly while she is eating or concentrating on something, so we hope she will be able to get enough rest to overcome those.

The vet not only gave her 1 liter of subcutaneous fluids (so those are still slowly being absorbed by her body), but also an antibiotic injection, a B vitamin injection, and a rimadyl injection. All of these combined perked her up a bit, but we were cautious to not let her over-exert herself. She is shaky/wobbly on her feet, so we made sure the bowls of food/water and bones in her room are moved to the edges to give her enough space to move around on her own without getting injured.

For now she doesn't show any interest in dry food, or wet food, but will swallow when we give her soft/liquid food. She drank another half bottle or so of the nutrition drink before we all went to bed last night.

I woke up multiple times in the night worried about her. The first time was about midnight, and when I first woke up I freaked out because one of our other dogs, Ruby, was laying on the bed between Dave and I and for a split second I thought she had somehow gotten into the room where Brook was (I must have been dreaming about sitting with Brook). Since I was awake, I went to check on little Brookie, and she was fine. Just laying there, mostly peaceful, sleeping. She opened her eyes and wagged her tail. I stayed with her for a minute but then went back to bed. I woke up again maybe 30 minutes later (no idea why), so it was sort of a rough night. I hope tonight will be better.

Dave has officially earned the nickname of "dog nurse" because he was so sweet and willing to take his "birthday day" off to stay with Brook and keep feeding her every few hours. That little dog sure has got a lot of people supporting her. I know she is extremely grateful!

So back to today; so far she drank another nutrition drink (quite willingly, yeah Brook!) and licked about 20ml of wet food mixed with some water out of my hand. She took more of the drink about 9am and Dave helped her to eat more wet food with the syringe. He'll be trained in animal feeding in no time!! :-)

I will try to update tomorrow so that everyone following the story can know how Brook is doing. Thank you to everyone for their kind thoughts and wishes and it is really great to know that this blog is reaching so many people.