Ferdinand has been doing this weird cough lately. Sometimes he'll randomly cough hard, only once like he has something stuck in his throat. Then, other times it's almost as if he can't breathe, and he makes a really weird sound... almost like a reverse sneezing or something. He does that 3 or 4 times in a row, then is fine. His breathing isn't labored or anything when he's normal.
THEN, I purchased some food from HealthyPetsNet.com because of a post I read on here. It was the one that said "Do you know what's in your dog food?" Well, even with just gradually entering it into his diet by mixing it with his current food, it made him throw up. He threw up twice a day for 2 days right after we started giving it to him.
He had a vet appointment on Saturday which was originally sceduled for his shots, but they ended up not giving the shots so that they could address these other two issues. I guess he was due for a fecal exam, so they decided to do that. I waited there for the results. Well, the vet came out and said he found some coccidia in his stool and has coccidiosis... which apparently interferes with their growth among other things.
I did some research and found that they get coccidia from and infected dog's stool. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out where he would have gotten the coccidia. We've taken him to the park before, but I usually carry him and watch him very carefully to make certain he's not around any other dogs' waste. I don't get it.
THEN, he also said that one of his testicles still hasn't dropped, so when we neuter him, they're going to have to make an additional incision in the abdomen area to surgically pull it down. The vet appointment wasn't a very good one. We were there for an hour and a half. It seemed like I kept getting more bad news.
The vet said the breathing problem could be allergies, so to give him children's benedryl twice a day. He also said the vomiting could be from the new food, so to stop giving it to him. I stopped feeding it to him, and he stopped vomiting. I'll be calling HealthyPetsNet today to try and get a refund. Plus, I have to give him meds for the coccidiosis for 10 days. And trying to give him liquid benedryl is bad enough. It's a serious battle. But having to follow it with his liquid coccidiosis meds is awful!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
It could be worse, he could have something very serious wrong. It's just frustrating.