Trooper and Maya to the vet

I fed Trooper outside on Wednesday as usual. A while later I brought him indoors and discovered that he was coughing up small batches of thick nasty stomach goo all over the floor. I followed him around with a roll of paper towels for much of the day. It seemed that he was trying to expel something. Trooper is a poop eater, which is disgusting but it's never made him do this and I've been keeping the dog yard pretty well cleaned up since the snow melted. The grass has greened up and dogs will often eat new spring grass, so I thought perhaps that was it. I found that when I confined him to a crate he settled down and the coughing/vomiting seemed to abate.

No food for him in the evening but we had a quiet night with no problems so I fed him again Thursday morning. It wasn't long before it started again, but today he wasn't spitting up anything at least. I didn't like the sound he was making however, it sounded deep in his chest, so I called the vet.

He's got a little fever but not enough to make him feel particularly bad and he's still got an appetite. It's probably a respiratory infection, like kennel cough but not necessarily bordatella. He's got doxycycline and a cough suppressant, but he's not really coughing much now, as long as I keep him quiet.

Maya was more stressed than usual
at the vet because Trooper was upset.

I've been wanting him to be seen by a vet anyway because I've noticed his eyes looking cloudy. Both Gypsy and Zachary had pannus, and we've had a couple fosters with it as well, and that's what it looked like to me. The vet thought so too, so he's now getting eye drops for that and I'm glad we are getting it addressed before it gets any worse.

Maya went along as well, both as moral support for Trooper and because she still needed a couple vaccines.

Trooper needs a muzzle for any vet visit and this one required the vet to look closely at his eyes. Direct eye contact with strangers is the thing that really sets Trooper off so this was tough on him although he really did better than I expected. I used the cage muzzle because he needed to be able to cough and spit up if he needed to, and it's actually less restraining.  We all survived, none the worse for wear, it was still better than a vet visit with Vince.

When I got back home I took out Maya, Felix, and Max for a five miler.

Felix playing in the watering hole.

Felix discovered a big drop off and it
surprised him. 

I'm actually better off when they each focus
on a different direction. If they all decide to go
in one direction, I can be in trouble.