new year – any gauze for alarm?

for once, i’m trying not to panic…

…and it’s not really working.

so, we had a scare a few weeks back. i got home from work, nik & os were at wal-mart, and budnik was back in our room, but i noticed the gauze from his bandage was gone. common sense would say he ate it, as he tends to feverishly lick any pillow his wound leaks out on, and he tries to grab the bandage out of your hand with his mouth when you remove it.

but here’s the deal – budnik has never been that “eat what he’s not supposed to” dog EVER. he’ll chew off a swallow-sized piece of chew toy and drop it rather than consume it. he’s never chewed on any of my stuff – furniture, shoes, nothing. i’ve had dogs who have, but even though he’s had unprecedented access to my shit, he never has. no, i found it hard to believe he ate it.

i searched the whole house, under furniture, everywhere. i even went outside and checked to see if it had maybe dropped out when he was walking around, but nothing. my theory, then, became that it came off when he was outside and some other critter had grabbed it and dragged it off. we read horror stories of gauze causing all kinds of intestinal distress with vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and all the trimmings.

this was on december 14th, and all was well…until december 18th, when he had a massive diarrhea issue across our bedroom floor, right at the foot of the bed, at round 3:30am. this followed with a couple days of water literally shooting out of his ass and we feared the worst. but some research the next day also determined that all the symptoms could also be too much dog aspirin, which i’d also been giving him, so i cut that off cold.

within twenty-four hours all was good again. we’d fed him organic pumpkin in his food mix to play it safe.

on december 23rd, i was talking to the ufc on the phone about how slow the shop was, when she went back and noticed the gauze missing from budnik’s bandaged area again. this time he had been left alone for several hours, sans collar, in our room napping. we thought about inducing vomiting this time, but all we read mentioned some horrible side effects and issues, and as getting budnik to eat regularly has been a bit of an ongoing rubik’s cube, we figured the bad might outweigh the good. we added pumpkin to his food again, but as we’d never reintroduced the aspirin this time there was no gastrointestinal issues, and we rode everything out through xmas with the pups, same as it ever was.

my main concern was the size and thickness of the gauze pads we use. they’re not dog stuff – they’re human grade. they are four by nine inches and non-stick and super absorbent…but it turns out all the “absorbent” layers are cellulose – i.e. plant or tree fiber, which will easily break down in a dog’s stomach. so little of it is NOT that it would appear they pass through him easily, especially with a little organic pumpkin helping to move things along. at least so our theory is. or, they’re just accumulating but have yet to do so to the point of causing an issue…yet?

so, this is being written on december 29th, the day after os got back from vegas. we decided to bombard the kid with shit he’d missed for the last week, so breakfast was whataburger. i was out of the office for ten, maybe twelve minutes. when i left the gauze was clearly visible in his bandage. my head told me at least three times to put his fucking collar on, and i didn’t. when i got back it was gone. needless to say, i lost my shit.

i’m writing this less than an hour after i discovered the gauze missing, but you won’t read this until five days later. i’ll add a “2024 note” and update around when it publishes and see where we’re at, i suppose.

**2024 note – as of today everything seems to be just fine on this front!**