I Came Home From My Trip to Find My Dog Was Almost Dead

Last week my husband and I traveled to Arizona to visit my parents. We’ve been frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic, and needed a real break and some sunshine (our hometown is rainy, cold, and dreary in the winter). We’ve received our vaccinations and felt confident about taking a short trip.

Willow is our new furry family member that we’ve had since September. She is almost five years old; a sweet, playful, loving pit bull/mastiff mix. We’ve been sending her to doggie daycare and she’s been doing fairly well there. The dogcare also has overnight boarding, so we decided to board her while we were gone.

When I picked her up from the dog boarding around 7:30am on Saturday, she was not her usual peppy self. She looked smaller than normal, like she’d shrank. The young lady at the counter said she’d done well; Willow was anxious at first, but then after a few days she was fine. She also let me know that Willow hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. Willow didn’t greet me as she usually did and I thought it was kind of strange, but said thank you to the lady and left.

As we were driving home, I found that Willow was not fine. She vomited a full stomach of dog food all over the back seat of the car. Once we got home, I looked her over. She looked too thin. She didn’t want to eat or drink, so I tucked her in to our bed and laid down with her (after cleaning out my car), and snuggled with her. I figured the car ride made her tummy upset and she’d recover and be okay.

Around 1pm, she was listless, still not wanting to eat or drink. Her previous owner is a veterinarian and lives over two hours away, so I texted her and asked her what I could do. She suggested I take her temperature and offer her some chicken broth. I didn’t have a thermometer to take her temp, but I had a can of chicken broth which she promptly refused.

Laying on the bed, she vomited a second time, which was only bile. She was weak and emaciated. She had difficulty walking and her eyes were glassy. I knew I needed to get her to a vet.

Since she doesn’t have a local veterinarian — she’s a healthy dog and we use her previous owner as her vet — and with the pandemic, everything here is locked down pretty tight. I called one emergency vet hospital after another, only to be told over the phone that they couldn’t or wouldn’t see her. After being refused from five different vet hospitals in our area, I called her previous owner (I’ll call her Dee), and asked her if we could take Willow to see her.

Mike and I packed an overnight bag, got in the car with Willow and drove for two hours.

We arrived in town around 4:30pm, and Dee whisked Willow away. After a couple of hours, she called to give me an update: Willow had lost a lot of weight, about 5lbs from her 58lb body, and she was critically dehydrated. Dee gave Willow IV fluids, an antiemetic, and a little “recovery food”. We took Willow and stayed overnight in a motel to make sure she was okay before we headed home.

In the morning, Willow was still not eating, but she was a little more active. We took her outside and she ate grass. She grazed on grass for quite a while which was a good sign.

We called Dee. She came over and gave Willow more IV fluids, another antiemetic injection, and gave us medication and canned food. She’s an amazing woman and a great vet. Willow looked better almost immediately from the medical treatment.

On our way home, Willow slept. Mike and I were exhausted.

Once we got home, we all slept the rest of the afternoon. Willow slowly ate one of the small cans of the dog food over the course of the day. In the middle of the night, she ate an entire can of cat-sized wet food.

This morning, she still isn’t eating dry dog food, but she ate some eggs. I made her some rice and tuna and she’s eating that too. She’s drinking water, she’s sleeping a lot. But I think she’s turned the corner.

When we were in Arizona, we loved being there so much, we talked about extending our trip another couple of days. I’m so glad we didn’t because I’m afraid we would have lost our dog and I would have been forever devastated. Thank goodness for intuition, and the love of her previous owner for making sure Willow is still here with us today.

Update on Willow

Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response about my dog Willow. I wanted to give an update on her since so many people have been asking if she’s okay, and what has happened with our communication with the boarding place.

Willow was treated for two days with IV fluid and antinausea medication for her dehydration. Her bloodwork was fine, her x-rays were fine, and besides being dehydrated, she was perfectly healthy. After we got home, Willow slowly started eating more and more until she was back to her regular self and eating her dry dog food, going for long walks and barking at the mailman when he comes around. She recently had her friend Mika over and also went with me this week to my friend’s farm and played with four other dogs. Needless to say, she is enjoying life again.

Some people were wondering why I didn’t have a local vet and why wouldn’t any emergency vet hospital see her that day. I wanted to clarify that Willow’s vet who lives two hours away is also her previous owner, and she is also my best friend’s daughter. Willow is a young, healthy dog and we’ve had her only a few months. She has all of her vaccines (can’t get into doggie daycare without them), has regular checkups, teeth cleaning, nail trimming, and I’m close with her previous owner/vet often and Willow gets to see her a lot too.

As far as no emergency vet hospital accepting her on a Saturday during the middle of the day, I was just as dumbstruck as the readers who made comments about this. Each place I called (and I called about five different places), gave various reasons why they couldn’t see Willow that day: they didn’t accept walk-ins (!!!), they were understaffed, they only accepted dogs who had been there before (again, !!!). I’d get referred to another emergency vet only to be denied from them too. The last straw was when I called a place about an hour away and they told me that they’d take her, but it would be about a 4-hour wait after I got there. That’s when I decided to drive for two hours to see Dee, her previous owner. A pet emergency isn’t that much of an emergency I guess if you have to wait 4–5 hours just to be seen.

Both Dee and I agreed that Willow probably thought she’d been abandoned, had major anxiety and made herself sick with grief and worry. I don’t think the boarding facility did anything wrong other than not giving her more snuggles and attention — Willow needs a lot of attention and love and she gets it at home, not so much at the boarding home.

We have not been back to the doggie day care/boarding facility. I spoke with the manager there and expressed my concern about Willow’s medical state when I picked her up. The manager went over with me the records of Willow’s stay there and her affect. Willow did well outside, not so great inside the kennel. I imagined she was probably nervous and sad, and that breaks my heart.

I was refunded a large portion of my money and given a couple of extra days for doggie daycare only. I told the manager that we wouldn’t have Willow boarded in the future, but she liked being in doggie daycare before this incident, and we’ve talked about Willow trying a day in the doggie daycare again and see how she manages it. I just can’t do it. Every time I think about her going for the day to the doggy daycare, I look at her sweet face and realize she’s more comfortable being home alone for the day.

Thank you everyone for your concern. Your comments are lovely and wonderful. I am a forever dog lover and owner, and am so happy that we still have sweet Willow in our lives.