A complete and total Barf-o-rama

FRIDAY: I took Friday off work to spend some time with Chris, who was on Fall Break from school.  We spent the day in Richmond, which was awesome because it was a sunny, cool day, and there are fall colors out unlike Williamsburg.  We came home in the afternoon to find that Jake, who was not crated, had done something very bad.   There was rice everywhere, and there sat a sad, torn remnants of my herbal neckwrap.  We quickly ushered him outside and grabbed the broom and the vacuum.  We vaccumed the rug, the floor in the great room, the kitchen, and the entry way.  We collected about 3/4 cup of rice in total.  We left him on the deck and took Veronica out to the vet to get weighed (30 lbs!) and then to Petsmart. 

SATURDAY: The next morning, Chris got up and fed the dogs.  No sooner after he scarfed his breakfast, he vomited on the WHITE SHAG rug.  Again, I ushered him out to the deck.  But not before barfing again on the floor in the sunroom.  Chris and I pushed back our own desires to vomit and wiped up the messes, which, by the way, contained more grains of rice.  We have a pretty good rug cleaner, so it wasn't so bad.  Jake stayed out on the deck for the remainder of the day.  He was visibly ill, slow and lethargic.  I brought out the water jug for him, and took the opportunity to trim his witchy claws, which are all black.  I hesitate to trim them because they are black and you can't see the quick, but they were so long, I thought I'd just give them a trim.  I did a great job, but on my second to last nail, I saw blood.  I was so upset, I ran inside to get a paper towel, but when I got back to him, the bleeding had stopped.  I felt bad about that.  I went out in the middle of the day for a massage, because my back has been killing me for about a week.  It was a supremely relaxing massage, and I was walking on clouds.  I returned home in the late afternoon and tried my hardest to relax.  When it was dinner time, I filled the bowls, and let the dogs at it, but Jake didn't eat.  He just drank a TON of water.  A few minutes later, that ton of water was a slimy, ricy mess on the rug.  Again.  My muscles tensed right back up, and I screamed for Chris to come down, because this wasn't something I could clean alone.   I needed reinforcements.  Chris got the wet/dry vac from the garage and went to town on the stain.  Out went Jake one more time, to the deck.  He drank some more water, then puked more rice on the deck.  (I keep a hose at the deck now to clean Veronica's messes.)   Around 7, Amber and Jason came over and we were all hanging out inside.  We let Jake back in too.  There we sat, trying to relax with a beer and some ambient music and lighting.  Out of nowhere, Jake let out puke #5 for the day, where?  On the rug.  We all thought Chris spilled his beer.  Luckily the wet/dry vac was still handy, so that was cleaned up pretty quickly.  Around 9:30, he ate dinner and kept it down.  Thank God.

SUNDAY:  We got up early and hosed off the wet/dry vac, which made me gag a little.  Both dogs ate breakfast, and spent the day basking in the sun on the deck.  I hung some jeans out to dry out there in the glorious sun as well.  I was pleased at how well Jake was doing, and it looked like he has some energy back.  He had a full meal in his belly, and I decided to do some training with them with some Milk Bones.  They did great.  I went back inside and resumed my Sunday chores.  Around 5pm I called them in for dinner and saw two more rice piles and 3 veronica piles.  Again, gagging, I brought the clean clothes inside, grabbed the hose and cleaned off the deck.  The dogs both ate their dinners, and spent the rest of the evening inside.   We monitored Jake all the while, and the vomiting seems to have stopped.  Of course now he is limping.  I was worried that it was my fault, from cutting the quick.  Then I realized that I cut the quick on his back paw and he is limping on his front paw.  I can't help but wonder if he is faking for attention.  He has been getting tons of sympathy from me.  The good thing is that while we were watching the SNF game, we were playing catch with Veronica, and Jake came up to us and started to play too.  I'm thinking he is feeling better.  I guess we'll find out today if he can keep his food down.