When the weather forecasts showed another heatwave heading our way we decided to do more of our dog walks on the beach to keep everybody cool – especially Beanie who’s grown a particularly long and woolly coat this year. To make us feel better about the increased fuel expenditure, we’d also use each walk to collect a big bag of seaweed for our compost bins, so each beach visit would kind of earn its keep.
It was a good plan that worked well in practice. Over the first couple of days we got an impressive haul of seaweed that got our compost really cooking, and the pups loved having big walks with readily available water-cooling. The only slight downside was that Beanie and Biggles had to stay on lead throughout; hot weather means picnickers and disposable barbecues on the beach which is never a good combo with free-running Beaglets.
On the third day just as the walk was coming to a close, Biggles suddenly started pawing at his face and eating sand. We got him off the beach as quickly as possible, but by this time his urge to fill his mouth had reached fever pitch and he was grabbing at grass, gravel, dirt, literally anything within reach. Clearly something was very wrong, so we got him home and gave him a Piriton tablet (human antihistamine medication that is well tolerated by dogs) in the hopes of calming whatever was irritating his face. These things take a while to work, so we gave him his teatime meal and let him into the garden, whereupon he began voraciously eating grass. I called him to interrupt his grass feeding frenzy, and when he failed to respond I went to pick him up. Straight away I could feel that his gut was not right; it felt like he’d swallowed an over-inflated football. There was no give in his abdomen even with quite firm finger pressure. Over the next little while the Piriton calmed him down and reduced the pawing at his face, but I was still concerned about the pressure in his gut, and he just didn’t look happy at all.
Other Beagle owners and anybody who’s followed Beanie & Biggles’ adventures can probably guess what happened next: yep, we called the vet. By sheer coincidence it was (just) outside of normal hours so we got the emergency service, with the accompanying emergency price premium. The vet examined The Bigglet and outlined the situation we were facing. Whatever had caused the rampant sand-eating (maybe a sting from a jellyfish?), the problem now was the sand he’d ingested. Sand does not move through the canine digestive system very well; it tends to pool in one place and if enough of it makes its way to the small intestine, it can become compacted and cause a blockage. In extreme cases, surgery may be required, but more typically it takes supportive care – a drip to provide hydration, some pain relief, laxatives and maybe an x-ray or two. We weren’t keen on leaving our nearly 14 years old little boy at the practice overnight and the vet didn’t think he was in any significant danger at this point, so we were given a liquid laxative and instructions to monitor him at home, with the caveat that we might have a few smelly cleanup jobs ahead of us. I assured her that was OK – we’d got very good at cleaning up after dodgy Beagle bottoms over the years. As we stood at reception to settle up and I did my best not to react to the extortionate cost, a foul odour made its way to my nose. Biggles had farted. I bent down and I was sure his gut felt a little bit softer. I mentioned this to Susan and she said what I was thinking: we’d just paid £300 for Biggles to fart his way out of potential illness.
Back home Biggles seemed bit perkier. He happily slurped his serving of laxative once I’d mixed a bit of Greek yoghurt into it, but we were still worried about him – worried enough to let him sleep in our bed that night, not that much actual sleep occurred for anybody. Every 20 minutes or so Biggles got up and asked to go to the outside loo. As far as I could tell in the beam from my torch, these visits were not productive; he just trotted around as though he might be about to do something, then came right back in. By the morning, everyone was exhausted, and Biggles didn’t seem to have improved. He was very clingy, following me around wherever I went, had no interest in food, was hardly drinking and still had a swollen abdomen. As the day wore on, we ummed and awwed about whether to take him back to the vet. As the deadline for daytime appointments approached, Susan got him a follow up appointment. This time the vet firmly recommended having Biggles spend the night with them, to get supportive medical care that we couldn’t provide at home. We agreed of course, but neither of us liked the idea of going home without our little boy. I gave him a cuddle and whispered a little goodbye in his ear, and off he went into bowels of the veterinary practice, hopefully to purge the sand from his own bowels. Even without Biggles’ frequent loo requests, I didn’t sleep much that night either.
The next morning we were both desperate for an update from the vet. Susan rang them and they promised to call back, but the minutes kept ticking away without that call. I took Beanie, Poppy and Monkey out for a walk before the heat built up. The walk turned into a route march on the way back as my sleep-deprived brain convinced me that the worst possible news would be waiting for me on my return, but still there’d been no call. I fed our pack of four minus one, then went for a short but hilly run to burn off some of the tension. I ran the route faster than I’d ran all year, and when I got back, there was still no news. We discussed all manner of possible explanations for the vets not calling us back, and arrived at one that seemed the most likely: Biggles hadn’t improved, and the vets were now considering surgery.
Then, abruptly, the phone played its little incoming call ditty and Susan answered. The vet nurse assured us that Biggles was back in good health; he’d had some food, passed a lot of sandy, smelly poop, and was now banging his water bowl around and barking. She didn’t say how much he was barking, but er.. when could we come and collect him, because any time was fine with them. In fact right now would be a good time. I desperately needed a shower after my run, so we pushed things back just a little to 11am. I de-smelled myself, put the youngsters to bed, and we bundled Beanie into the van to come with us as we collected our boy.
The vet seemed very happy that we were about to take Biggles off their hands. She warned us that my boy might have slight loss of sphincter control for next few days (“keep him away from any white rugs or carpets” she said), and because he’d passed so much sand through his bum hole, it might be a bit uncomfortable. She gave us a few days of painkilling tablets to assist Biggles with his sore orifice, then just before going to get him, she asked if Beagles are often noisy in the house. Yep, Biggles had been woofing. A lot. And even a busy veterinary practice hadn’t heard anything quite like it before.
His reunion with us and Beanie was low key; he was perky and bright eyed, but didn’t seem to have missed us much. We got him home, I gave him a brand new cow hoof and he sat on the sofa next to me to chew it, during the course of which he let out a very audible, and certainly very smellable fart; what we Yorkshire people would call “a proper arse-ripper”. There was thankfully no follow through on this occasion; this was not the case on later occasions and I’ve made a note to give the sofas a proper clean once all this is over.
The Bigglet is back home at last, and eager to catch up on some hoof-chewing
There are three things to take from this little misadventure:
- When a dog gets hurt in the mouth (as might happen if they encounter, for example, a jellyfish) one possible response is for them to starting packing their mouth with anything they can get, even sand. This isn’t just a Biggles thing – we’ve since found numerous accounts of other dogs reacting exactly the same way.
- Even when you’ve been smelling a Beagle boy’s farts for more than 13 years, don’t think you’ve smelled the worst he can dish out, especially if given the appropriate medical assistance.
- When a vet says that a dog might be “a bit loose” in the rear end after treatment, they’re probably downplaying the magnitude of the problem you’ll be facing.
In retrospect it wasn’t the best idea to allow His Biggleship onto our cream sofas given the state of his bum, but they cleaned up quite well.