Pet Update

Penny has "faved" another one of my current knitting projects. This is Jennifer's Afghan, a pattern from a book I read recently entitled "Dropped Dead Stitch." (I bet you non-knitter's didn't even know that there was such a thing as knitting-themed murder/mystery fiction, did you?) Anyway, I stopped mid-row on this afghan, so it ended up being a nice little tube and Penny was able to tunnel inside for her afternoon nap!

Here's my sweet Sophie terrorizing a streaked gopher we caught in the live trap the other day.

I was so happy to see her getting so excited about this little gopher because a week ago Sophie almost died! She had injured her paw in a leap off the bed a few weeks ago and was unable to walk on it. A visit from her vet determined there were no broken bones and I chose to pursue the less expensive Ascriptin therapy (vs. a pricey NSAID prescription which also required a liver & kidney blood test prior to starting the medication). I received all the standard warnings about aspirin's affects on the stomach lining and was told to watch Sophie's stools especially for anything that might indicate internal bleeding due to aspirin irritation.

After a week of trying to restrict her activity, Sophie's limp was almost gone, so I discontinued the Ascriptin therapy. Then after another week, she jumped off the bed and re-injured the paw, so I started her Ascriptin again (half a pill in the morning and the other half in the evening). Last Monday, she was much more lethargic than usual and napped on the couch for almost the entire afternoon. I didn't really think anything of it until suppertime rolled around and she was only mildly interested in her treats and then left the table without even begging for plates to lick (extremely unusual for her!) I asked Mr. Johnson if he had noticed any change while on "poop patrol" earlier in the day and he said he hadn't. Then shortly after supper he had her out and she conveniently pooped for us and Mr. Johnson reported that her poop was black! Uh-Oh! I knew that wasn't a good sign and lifted one of Sophie's lips to find that her gums were an extremely unhealthy shade of light pink (almost white). That's when I knew something was really wrong. We loaded her into the car and whisked her off to our local Affiliated Emergency Veterinary Service hospital. A battery of tests (including blood, x-ray and ultrasound -- to rule out tumors) were done and it was determined that Sophie was severely anemic, due to a GI bleed triggered by the Ascriptin I'd been giving her for the previous week. Poor Baby! She had to spend the night and part of the next day at the hospital. I brought her home Tuesday afternoon with a couple weeks' worth of special intestinal diet food and she's been receiving lots of TLC while she recovers from this GI bleed and associated anemia.

Sophie's almost back to her old self now and that's why I'm so happy to see her getting so excited about a streaked gopher in a trap again -- because a week ago, this photo wouldn't have been possible!

(and in case you're wondering, this gopher escaped unharmed because once the trap's tipped over, they just have to run onto that door and it opens right up--guaranteeing a speedy escape!)