Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 28th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “throw in the towel.” Use the phrase “throw in the towel” somewhere in your post. Enjoy!

I’m so ready to throw in the towel with these darn dogs!

I love my dogs, y’all know I do, but two nights in a row added to more from last week have me ready to throw in the towel on how to get them well. I don’t know if they don’t like our new lifestyle, or they have picked up something at one of the dog parks, but every night, we are up and down all night taking someone to the bathroom.

As you know, here in the new location, the dog park is kind of a hike from our site, and many times we can’t get them to just “go” outside the door around our motor home. So off one or the other of us goes-the past two nights it’s been Whiskey- to the dog park at 2 or 3am. In addition to that, now Whiskey won’t eat. Brandy is still getting over pancreatitis, she has two more doses of her medication to go, and her appetite is fine. Wth is going on with Whiskey now?? She is so psychotic with her eating habits on a normal basis, it’s almost funny. Every night she does what we call The Dance. First, she begs us until we feed them, only to watch Brandy eat her food while Whiskey ignores hers. Then, she will wait a while, sniff everything around the floor and near her bowl, sort of sneak up on it, before finally eating it. This behavior has only gotten worse over time. And that is only if she eats at all. And when we were feeding her table scraps, she would act like she was scared to death of it before tentatively taking a bite. Weirdo.

She doesn’t act sick otherwise, except for night before last, she had the runs. Last night she wouldn’t eat her dinner, so her stomach growled all night, and two separate times one of us had to haul her down to the dog park. When I took her, around 3:30am, she only peed a couple of times. I heard some coyotes off in the distance, so I wondered if that was what got her up. Idk, but she still wouldn’t eat, so another bowl of food was wasted. She also has not eaten her breakfast today. Ugh. The difference between her and Brandy’s situation is that she is not shaking, in pain or distress, or panting and looking disoriented like Brandy did when we finally took her to the vet.

There is nothing interesting for them to see or really do here at this location. Not many dogs are around either, compared to Picacho. Could that be it, or maybe she is acting out because we’ve stopped giving them food from the table in an effort to keep them well. Brandy has been confirmed by lab tests to have too much fat in her blood, so we are giving her only her dog food and dog treats.

We don’t want to run to the vet with Whiskey since she doesn’t act sick, because it’s very expensive for one thing. But my goodness, we are almost walking zombies at this point! It’s also no fun for me to try to get comfortable and sleep after using my CBD to then have to come out of the fog, get up, get dressed, and walk a dog to the dog park in the cold, in the middle of the night. Dave is grouchy, no wonder, probably because he has also lost a lot of sleep, but he is the type that gets mad when he sees those he loves hurting and he can’t fix it. I think the dogs can sense this, but I can’t convince him to take anything to relax. And he more than dotes on these girls, they are like grand babies to him. I think he’s also ready to throw in the towel. But I wouldn’t want to find out what he would do if we lost either one of these girls. Say a prayer that things go back to normal soon!

This sad and confusing post was brought to you today by Linda G Hill for SoCS.