Poor Tisen.  He isn’t feeling well.  In fact, he’s been vomiting periodically all day.  The beginning of this rather traumatic event for all of us was really yesterday when I took him to the vet.

He’s been gimping quite a bit and he’s been itching so much that he’s drawn blood scratching more than once in the past week.  This is not a huge surprise–the vet previously told me some of his scars were probably from allergies to fleas and pollen.  She told me dogs often get skin itchiness from airborne irritants like pollen when they have allergies, unlike humans who get hay fever.

This time around, the vet gave me prescription Benadryl for Tisen–mainly because it’s cheaper than over-the-counter human Benadryl for his weight–and Tisen had a restful evening last night with no itching.  But she also gave me an antibiotic for him to take because of some infection in his skin from scratching.  Pat gave him his first antibiotic this morning.  About an hour later, he start vomiting.

While I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time closely observing vomiting styles, Tisen definitely has his own style of throwing up.  He makes no sound.  He doesn’t even pause in his motion.  He simply opens his mouth and a puddle appears on the floor below him as if by magic.  I’ve never seen anything throw up like this.

When I take him for his mid-day walk, he chooses Lamb.  When we go out the door, he suddenly spits Lamb out and she is covered in vomit.  I set Lamb aside to worry about later and quickly wipe up the mess in the hall while Tisen gets ‘Possum instead.

He makes no fuss.  No noise.  No signs of vomiting at all.  And his vomit is mostly water, so it doesn’t make me gag to clean it up.  It’s awfully nice of the poor guy to be so considerate when he’s miserable.

In contrast, when we had Mastiffs, I will never forget coming home to find Katie throwing up everywhere.  Each puddle was approximately 3 feet in diameter and there were at least 1/2 a dozen puddles.  Even though she hadn’t eaten for hours, the content of her vomit nearly made me vomit.

She’d eaten a rag and a piece of carpet that had wound themselves around each other in her stomach and were lodged there.  Thankfully, they came up eventually.  That dog would eat anything–when we put her in a “puppy proof” room, she ate the outlet covers off the walls.

But Tisen is not an eater.  It’s hard to get him to eat food, let alone home furnishings.  He is most likely allergic to the antibiotic.  Not being able to reach the vet, we decide we’ll ride this out and hope the vomiting stops soon.

I take a few shots, but Tisen gives me the, “Really?  Now???”  look.  Then he throws up again.  Is there an ethical standard for photographing sick people dogs?

Related articles

• Cleanliness and Dogliness (nomadicmainstream.com)
• Tisen’s Night Out (nomadicmainstream.com)
• George Tisen and Mr. Beaver (nomadicmainstream.com)