My poor poo....

I had Shelby and Dale out for a walk on Thursday. It was certainly warm by this summers standards, but not unbearable. After our walk, and a few swims for Shelby, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few dinner items.

Given the warmth, we made sure that all the windows were open in the van, and kept our in-store trip to 20 minutes. We didn't want Shelby to over heat.

On Friday morning we were on our way to the cottage, but Dale wasn't feeling well. We turned around in Bowmanville, and I dropped Dale at home before going to the dog park again. I already had Shelby in the car, so why not take her for a little jaunt?

We had been walking for about 5 minutes when I noticed her gait was off. It was really wide, and her back seemed to be sagging. I called her name, and she turned to me, but now she was staggering. By the time she reached me, she was losing her balance.

I was panic-stricken! I cannot remember the last time I had felt that cold fear. Shelby tried to get up off the ground but could not. I tried to carry her towards the main path to get help, but was not very successful. We sat in the middle of the path, her saliva thick and frothy, and her breathing rapid and labored. She was twitching, and had her head on my lap just looking at me with those big brown eyes. I was in tears.

Luckily a couple came along the main path. i called out for help and the fellow came over. I can understand the look in his eye as I sat there with my frothy dog, but regardless he offered to help me carry her to the car. What a kind person he was.

Instead I used his phone to call Dale, asking him to come help me and to bring a blanket to carry Shelby in. Poor Shelby! She was trying to bark at this stranger, but couldn't summon up a decent woof. She was trying to stand, but kept falling over.

While we sat in the shade I had all kinds of terrible thought...what was wrong? would she need to be put down? It was close to unbearable and made me cry even more, because all Shelby could do was look at me with utter confidence. I took pictures of her lying in the grass in case I was not going to have a chance to take her picture again.

When Dale arrived she sat right up. She barked her big bark, and walked over to him. She was able to walk to the car, and drank 1/2 of her jug of water. Then she lay down and slept on the ride home.

She was able to get from car to house, and to the coolness of the basement. She crawled under the coffee table and just lay there. With little prompting, she drank 2 more bowls of water, then settled to sleep. I, however, was retarded. I would not leave the basement, and if I had to pee, I made Dale sit and watch her. Her breathing slowed, and she was snoring....she seemed pretty comfy.

After about 2 1/2 hours she got up like nothing had happened. She wiggled and waggled, wanting to go outside. She ate a bowl of food and looked at me like "That's all?".

All in all, she is fine. To see her you would not know that she has been unwell. And just in case, I slept on the couch with her last night anyway...