When Sniffs Become Sniffles

Beanie has what we suspect is a bad cold. We’ve noticed her being a bit sniffly over the last few days, but yesterday morning she was really off color. Her nose was running pretty constantly, she stayed slumped in bed and showed no interest in her breakfast. As the day progressed she was sick several times, and not only refused to take food and water, but actually shied away from it. Just putting a bowl near her was enough to make her shuffle away to another corner of the bed. Needless to say it was time for the vet.

Ordinarily when we get to the vet, Beanie perks up to the extent that we almost feel foolish for taking her there. This time however she just sagged in my arms and could’t even manage a tail wag. We braced ourselves for the inevitable: another course of antibiotics that would wreck all our recent efforts to get her gut back to a healthy, resilient state. Fortunately, we got the senior vet at the practice, Carol, who understands our reticence towards antibiotics. She suggested an alternative herbal remedy, Echinacea, which has apparently been shown to have an anti-viral action. Since Beanie was so resistant to food or water, Carol gave us a syringe so that we could squirt a little water/echinacea mixture into Beanie’s mouth.

Back home, we gave the syringe a try several times but Beanie would not let anything near her mouth, and became more distressed with each attempt. She seemed to be having discomfort when swallowing, and all the while her nose kept on dripping. We became concerned about dehydration, and got another appointment at the vet. We were now ready to cave in to antibiotics, anything to make our pup well! Carol however was ready with another suggestion: a painkiller to soothe any discomfort Beanie was experiencing in her throat and mouth, and a few subcutaneous injections of fluids to rehydrate her. We headed back home with Beanie, who now had several moist, unappealing lumps around her bum.

The painkiller was morphine-based and has two common side-effects: drowsiness (no surprise there) and panting. I didn’t know about that last one, so when I left her briefly to get a coffee and returned to find her panting for Scotland, well let’s just say it wasn’t one of my calmer moments. A call to the vet reassured me that it was all completely normal, so I changed my underwear and got ready for a long, long night.

At around three in the morning Beanie was a little perkier, and had a few spoonfuls of chicken soup, and a little trip out to the garden for a pee. Feeling that our little pup had turned the corner, we finally allowed ourselves a few hours’ sleep.

I’m happy to report that Beanie is now definitely on the mend. She’s got a gentler pain killer from the vet to soothe her throat and she’s showing much more interest in food. Susan cleared her dripping nose by turning our bathroom into a steam room. She shut the door and the windows, ran a really hot bath and put a few drops of eucalyptus oil in for good measure. After a minutes in there (lying on the floor beside the bath, not in it obviously!) Beanie seemed much less glum and had a big drink of water.

Poor little soul though. A blocked nose for a Beagle is probably like being struck deaf and blind for the rest of us. But now we have to be on our guard and keep the sympathy in check. If Beanie stays true to form, she’ll milk this illness for all she’s worth!