Rodenticide is NOT for dogs.

So this week was probably the most hectic and trying of Jen and I's young marriage. On one hand, that means that we are pretty lucky that we haven't faced bigger problems, but on the other hand, it still sucked to go through it.

On Monday when I got home from work, I discovered our dog Yoshi was bleeding from his wang. I'm no veterinarian, but I know that isn't normal. I rushed him up the street to our Vet's office (conveniently located about 2/10 of a mile away) and they immediately had him come back into the exam room. X-rays were taken and Dr. Hale (Vet) concluded it was most likely an infection, as no stones were found in the X-rays and Yoshi at 2 yrs. old isn't a likely cancer candidate. We were sent home with an antibiotic and some pain meds for our pup. We were nervous, because Yoshi was still dripping blood and was growing increasingly depressed. He wouldn't eat or drink, and had great difficulty sleeping because of the pain he was in.

By the next morning, we expected the bleeding to subside, yet it was still steady. Jen stayed home from work and took him back to the Vet. Once there, blood-work was done and his red-blood cell count and platelet count were low, and the Vet was worried. By 3 o'clock, Yoshi was not improving, instead he was rapidly getting worse. His blood wasn't clotting and he continued to lose it. I was summoned from work with instructions that we had to get Yoshi to the Veterinary Hospital in Gainesville ASAP. When I arrived around 4:15, Yoshi was immediately loaded into the backseat, with several blankets and hot water bottles to keep his temperature up (his feet were quite cold... which was quite unnerving). Our makeshift doggy-ambulance hit I-10 around 4:40 and we reached Gainesville around 6:20. The drive down was very scary, and I feared we would lose him along the way. One saving grace was Jen's constant work of rubbing him to promote warmth and talking to him to keep him awake and alert. His breathing was shallow and blood-pressure very low when we arrived.

Again, he was rushed back to the exam room and work was immediately begun to keep our little boy alive. After deciding (which in and of itself was difficult for financial reasons) to go ahead with all the necessary tests/treatments to make Yoshi as good as new. Looking back, it was almost silly that we worried about the finances, because in our minds, money can be replaced and Yoshi can't be.

We went about finding a place to lay our heads in Gainesville, and Jason D. Wiggins was gracious enough to donate a one-night hotel stay he had won in a raffle to us. So we went to the hotel, laid down, and worried.

Overnight, Yoshi received a blood transfusion and and plasma booster. In the morning he wasn't much better, but we learned the results of his blood-work from the previous night. He arrived with a red-blood cell count of 11, under 10 is supposed to be fatal and 40-45 is normal for dogs. So we arrived just in time. In the morning it had already doubled to 22, but his clotting factor (platelets) were still precariously low. The Vet on call that night seemed confident that rodenticide (rat poison) was the culprit. The results in the morning were consistent with that diagnosis. Rat poison causes animals clotting to go haywire, eventually killing them.

Yoshi probably consumed it at my parent's house, or at Grandpa's, a week before this all started (it takes one or two weeks to manifest itself). We don't blame them or anything, but we are pretty sure it was at one of those two places.

Throughout the day Wednesday we sat and waited around Gainesville to hear more about our pup. Around 1 o'clock we got to see him for the first time, he was droopy and kinda sedated, but we walked him around a bit outside. To kill time and take our minds off of the events at hand, we went and saw a movie (by the way, Leatherheads isn't that good).

That afternoon Dr. Spect (Gainesville Vet, great guy) informed us Yoshi would have to stay another day for observation and he assured us everything was progressing normally. So we came home because we both had to work Thursday.

After work Thursday, we headed down to Gainesville again to pick up our healthy (-ier) little Shiba Inu. We arrived, the bill was less than we thought, and our dog got a free haircut! (Not really a free haircut, he just had a shaved belly and abdomen because they did an ultrasound on him). His platelet count had tripled in 24 hours and his red-blood cell count was recovering. He should be back to completely normal levels within 2 weeks. He needs Vitamin K every day for 6-8 weeks to keep fighting the anti-coagulants in his system and due to severe trauma to his bladder (3 cathederizations, internal bleeding, and possible clotting) he will continue to leak pee-pee for a week or so (we hope it's only a week). He is pretty much his normal self, his appetite is back and he is generally playful again. He is pretty sensitive about other dogs messing with him, so the Dog Park will have to be put on hold for another week or so.

All in all, it had ended happily... but I never want to go through this again.