“Remoted” Day 243 (Saturday)

The peppy pups have been especially calm and sedate today. Ever since Moose got his shots on Friday he has been off his game. It's been blissfully quiet without the constant yapping, and at the same time, more nerve-wracking than pleasing.

The unnerving quiet even made me move my recently scheduled eye exam, but I may have been looking for an excuse. By “recently scheduled” we’re talking last night, after reading an email from the eye doctor place that they haven’t seen me in 17 months. That is partly because I couldn’t remember the name of the office to schedule another appointment and was too lazy to go digging through emails and paperwork to find it. The email had a link for online scheduling, which is brilliant. Last night at 10:30 I was able to schedule an appointment for this afternoon. This morning at 9:30 it was rescheduled for tomorrow. It's so much nicer when I don't have to actually talk to anyone and I'm spared the phone call dress rehearsal and pep talk.

The scene as they slept late this morning.

One potentially manufactured "reason" for changing the appointment was I didn’t want to leave Moose unattended. Since returning from the vet Friday afternoon, he's gone through shivering, lethargy, standing with his hind legs twitching, and no interest in food. I called the vet after he had been shivering for a couple hours, but he wasn’t vomiting or having diarrhea, so they weren’t especially alarmed.

The concern at this end grew when the dog who lives for food and scams for treats refused his dinner. He was tricked into taking a Benadryl hidden inside a wet food meatball, which was the only food he could be coaxed into eating. 

At bedtime, Moose was settled into one bed after I carried him upstairs. Winston wouldn’t lay down in the other bed across the room. He stood near my bed and kept doing his polite bark that sounds like “uff.” When he didn’t respond to “Do you want to go out?”  the other bed was moved over near Moose’s in a desperate measure. Winston immediately climbed into it and curled up to sleep. These dogs are better communicators than half the humans I know.

Both dogs slept through the night, which is a miracle and also unfortunate that it takes Moose feeling poorly for it to happen. They slept until nearly 8:00 this morning, which gave me a panic and I checked to make sure Moose was still breathing. Worry much?

Winston sprang to life and pranced downstairs and around the dining room like a pony. Since the insulin injections began, he has moments where he is much more like his younger self, which is great until he starts jumping and risks injuring his knee again. Moose wouldn’t eat his food, wasn’t interested in water, and didn’t care about cookies. He ate some plain rice and wet food and laid down for most of the day.

Winston also slept all day. He’s either enjoying the peace and quiet and catching up on rest, or empathizing by matching Moose’s energy level. It turns out that a quiet Moose and Winston are not quite the blessing it was imagined to be. Their noise was replaced with my worry. I wish I was kidding, but they were so quiet I kept checking to make sure they were both still breathing. Hopefully, tomorrow will return to the more usual noise and energy levels for all us.