Don’t always work out. I had my whole day today planned around going up to Mt Vernon to attend the round table about eating locally. And then life got in the way. Our elderly dog Sam has been a bit under the weather all week, but didn’t seem really ill. Then he threw up yesterday morning, didn’t eat his dinner last night, threw up again early this morning and refused his breakfast. And this is a dog that usually doesn’t stop to breathe once he starts to eat.

Normally I’m a wait it out kind of girl, but even Mike seemed concerned. And Sam is 12, so it’s harder to be low key about these things. So I called the vet to see if they could sneak him in - they said to come on down and they’d get us in when they could. So of course, it took three hours of waiting for a spot, talking to the vet, waiting for x-rays and bloodwork and waiting for a plan of treatment.

Turns out poor Sam has a combination of pancreatitis and a possible digestive system blockage. Bummer. The pancreatitis is apparently a result of the raw steer bones we’ve been giving the dogs as treats. We thought they were okay, and apparently they are for Jake, but older dogs can’t handle the rich bone marrow. Treatment for that is 24-36 hours of nothing orally, no food or water. And no being around any one else with food or water. So he’s on intravenous fluids and plenty of antibiotics staying at the vet until Monday afternoon.

And it seems that he swallowed some pretty big bone fragments earlier this week which may be stuck and causing the vomiting so they’re going to do more x-rays tomorrow to see if the bones pieces are moving along like they should. Hopefully they will be or we’ll be facing some hard decisions about what to do with our very loved “old man”.

And as a result of the time at the vet and our concern over our “puppy” Sam, the rest of the day got totally derailed. I just couldn’t get it together to drive 45 minutes north and be gone for 4 hours. Instead Mike cleaned the basement and garage while I sorted things out upstairs in the kitchen, pantry and linen closet. Then I painted three of the five new interior doors that we hung back in May and that have been paintless and doorknobless ever since. Now when people come over they can actually latch the bathroom door.

Here’s hoping your day was better than ours. And if you have a thought to spare, send it Sam’s way with encouragement to hurry up and feel better so he can come home!