WARNING: This phlog post contains the words "vomit" and "urine". --- Did you know that coins can kill a dog? 3 years ago, our little white mutt was moping around the house. While he would usually pull me down the road during his walks, he was lagging behind. A couple of days later, he could hardly stand. Clearly something was wrong. A flu bug had just torn through our household, and I was told that dogs can get flu, too. I guess I was a bad pet owner for not immediately leaping to catastrophic health conclusions and calling the dog an ambulence. But I didn't, and I should have. Then... He vomited up 32 cents in coins, including U.S. nickles, pennies and dimes. I googled, "Is it bad if a dog vomits coins?" Yes. It's bad. Very, very bad. But not as bad as if he hadn't vomited them. Of course this happens at 5 pm on a Friday. All vetrinary voice mails were forwarded to the expensive 24-hour after hours co-op emergency vet hospital an hour away. After talking with the emergency vet, we rushed the dog in. [From here on out, I'm going by memory, so you gopher-loving vetrinarians and microbiology instructors... give me a break.] A blood test revealed that our dog had high levels zinc in his blood. Zinc is toxic to dogs, and it was destroying his platelets. His urine turned black as his red blood cells were dying. His usually pink ears were nearly white. The outlook was really bad for this dog. But with 3 crying kids desperate to save their best pal, we decided we were 'all in' on trying to heal him. The emergency vet did an x-ray to see what else was in the stomach. There were no coins, but there appeared to be some strange object which my son immediately recognized as plastic toy train wheels. Plastic was ok and may or may not find its way out on its own, but no surgery was recommended because they weren't sure he would survive it and because... plastic is not zinc. The vet began a fluid IV to keep his kidneys from shutting down. There was nothing more we could do, so I took the family home with a promise to return in the morning. All night long, the vet called us almost every hour with ever more dire reports. We didn't sleep a wink. About 3 am, we authorized an emergency blood transfusion. On our 5 am phone briefing, the vet said the blood transfusion seemed to help a little, but their supply of dog-blood type-whatever was now depleted. It would be at least 24 to 36 hours until they could get more blood or find a canine donor. This drama continued through Sunday, and we received our nearly hourly play by play from the vet. Finally, Monday morning arrived. The news about the dog was as bleak and getting bleaker. "Its as though he has lost his will to live," said the vet. The kids couldn't go to school for all their tears. At 6 am Monday, we piled into the car and drove the 50 miles to get our dog, who was being transfered from the emergency clinic to his regular vet. The total bill was now at $2,600. The dog looked sicker than ever. I made the field decision to have the vet remove the dog's I.V., and instead of taking him to his regular vet, we took him home to die in a familiar surrounding. The kids were home from school. They made him a comfortable bed on the couch (a special place to him, where he is not usually allowed to be). He was fed pieces of the wild game jerky he likes, and given small pinches of tuna (he loves tuna more than a cat). The vet told us that without an I.V., his kidneys would shut down, so we spoon fed him crushed ice. As it turns out, he loves crushed ice. Every hour or so, I would carry him outside so he could stand wobbly and pee out that thick black urine. In between the pee trips, he was smothered with love. My kids even called our pastor and asked her to come over and give him last rites, which she gladly did. Throughout the day, you could tell the dog relished the attention. He began to lift his head a little and would respond with a wag when someone came over to see him. He even whined pathetically if he felt he wasn't given all the attention he thought he deserved. That afternoon he suprised everyone when he gingerly slid off the couch, waddled slowly to his water bowl and completely emptied it. He even sniffed at his food dish, but didn't eat. We didn't want to get the kids hopes up, but I thought... that isn't a bad sign, is it? He slept most of the next day, with one of the children always nearby, stroking his back. A few days later, the dark urine assumed its normal color. Pink returned to his ears. I am certain that by sheer force of will, he had decided not to die that week. In fact his still alive as I write this, 3 years later, even as this moment he is being x-rayed by his vet after he vomited up a few small, low profile Sandisk USB drives last night. That is what triggered this whole walk down memory lane, I guess. I'm hoping to reassure myself that the dog is ok and hasn't swallowed anything else. A couple of hundred dollars spent on an x-ray on a Tuesday might prevent an expensive trip to the emergency vet on a Friday evening. I'll know soon, but I'm quite certain he managed to vomit all the usb drives. So long as there are no surprises hiding in there, he should be ok. Did I mention the orange ear plugs? No? One of my sons is in trap shooting club, and sometimes the ear plugs are in his pocket, and sometimes they go through the washing machine, then to the clothes dryer. And sometimes when you pull a hot wad of clothes out of the dryer, an orange ear plug might drop on the floor, only to be eaten by a little white dog, who thankfully, seems to have no problem passing them, as evidenced by the number of orange ear plugs you might spot if you walk his usual daily path. There might be one or two of those in the x-ray. I wouldn't be surprised Life with a dog that will eat anything and everything is often expensive, but never dull. Never, ever dull. By the way, does anyone know if there's zinc in those little Sandisk USB drives? Asking for a friend. ----- 3pm Update. Surprise! It would have been so sweet to just leave this phlog entry as it was, but the x-ray came back and the mutt has managed to swallowed a fucking binder clip that he never should have been able to swallow. At the urging of my vet, I spent time talking to an 'endoscopic vetrinary specialist' who quoted me $1,200 to TRY to remove it, and if he was unable to, then add another +$500 plus costs of 2 days observation. Meanwhile, my real vet is trying for a 3rd time to get him to vomit out the clip by making him drink peroxide. If that fails, I will have them do the surgery locally instead of sending him to the big city. It will still cost $500, but save me hundreds of miles of driving back and forth. Anyone out there need a slightly used dog? -- [edited to remove a plethora of worse swearish words.]