After almost a week with diarrhea, Airlie seems to be on the mend. She never acted sick, except for possibly being feverish the first day. Other than that, she ate well, drank well, played hard and was her usual, active, excited self.
It all started Tuesday night, when she woke me up to go out at 11:15, then again at 1:15, then at 4:30 she threw up. At 6:15 when DH came in to tell me he was leaving, he reported that she was sitting up, panting, he thought she was hot, then decided he should take her out, where she pooped bad enough that he could smell it across the yard and "it made me gag" (that's how DH is). After he left, she threw up again.
Both times she puked, it was just bile.
I checked the piles, and the putrid, grey-green, oily puddles looked like what Kansas has experienced a time or two. This was Airlie's first bout with any kind of diarrhea or sickness of any kind, and as it has been quite rainy of late, resulting in standing water in the back yard, I was pretty sure she had just ingested something she shouldn't. If this was typical of the other two dogs, it would only last a day or two. She'd been eating a lot of mud (they all have) thanks to all of the rain. Not sure what the fascination with mud is, but she's pooping dirt clods on a regular basis. The other two, not so much, and since they weren't experiencing the symptoms Airlie had, I still wasn't worried. She'd only been in the house/yard so what could she have possibly come into contact with that she hadn't already been exposed to for the past year and a half?
She was fine on our walk, and had no problems while I was at work. She didn't even poop again til later Wednesday night. Pretty much a repeat of Tuesday night, with less frequency and minus the puking. She went out at 8:30, 11:30 and 4:30, then no bowel movements at all during the day. The puddles looked pretty much the same. Thursday evening she went out at 8:30. DH let her out and left her out there, forgetting that I was trying to limit her ability to be outside eating mud and drinking out of puddles, and forgetting that I had been trying to monitor her bathroom habits and note what she had done, when and the appearance. I was so frustrated at that point! However, she only went out one time during the wee hours, so maybe we were turning a corner.
Still, I was a bit worried, since I hadn't seen something like this go on quite so long before.
Friday morning it rained again (oh, joy) so we didn't get to take our walk until later, but, as usual, she was her happy, energetic self. The puddle she couldn't help leaving in the street during our walk later in the day was dog food -colored, and grainy, but I didn't see any indication of parasites (and her flea/tick/heartworm meds are supposed to treat all but one of those, anyway...). The puddles in the yard that day were of the same variety, with a few mostly solid pieces of dog food in them. Maybe things were finally running their course. I'd given her some banana and yogurt on Thursday, to replace some intestinal flora and electrolytes, just in case, though I really didn't want to slow her intestinal motility. Better to flush things out.
I was starting to worry a bit. This hadn't ever lasted three days before... If it was still happening by Monday, I would have taken her to the vet, just to find out what it was, since then it would have been a full week of diarrhea.
Happily, I can report that we passed both Friday and Saturday nights with no unexpected trips out to the yard in the wee hours, and this morning Airlie pooped two solid poops during our walk (a habit which I hate and am still trying to break her of, but at least in this case it was a good sign). I hope this means she's better, and whatever it was has run its course. I had been pondering Giardia (and hoping against it). But, like I said, she never once acted like she actually felt bad.
