Sunday was a pretty normal day. I spent the day crafting & getting lots of ideas about blogging. My OH went to the London Coffee Festival. We took Poppy for her evening walk & got home just before 6pm. We fed her straight away as normal. Within a few mouthfuls, Poppy started to choke on her food. It was pretty horrendous. She cleared it quite quickly & carried on eating her food. Not long after, she started making that horrible noise a dog makes before they’re sick. She did this quite a few times before bringing anything up. But then it continued every minute or so. We googled it & waited to see if it would clear & she would settle. She didn’t. She couldn’t seem to clear whatever was irritating her. She could breath okay & wasn’t in any distress. We were terrified! After nearly an hour, we called the emergency vet. After chatting with him, we agreed to take her in. Poppy doesn’t mind the vet – as far as she’s concerned, it’s a trip out with someone giving her some love & attention at the end of it! The vet, Colin, checked her over & gave her some steroids. We only needed to take her back if it persisted.

When we got home, we sat on the sofa with Poppy. She managed to sleep, but only with her head propped up. When she lay her head down, it brought the cough on. Every time she moved, it brought the cough on. So we sat & she slept. Then it came to go to bed. We got her upstairs and got her settled. By this point, it didn’t matter if she wasn’t moving or not. After a few minutes, she’d start to cough & try to clear her throat, which meant cleaning up. It got to the point where we couldn’t clean it up quick enough so we called the vet & took her in again. This time, he gave us some thing like Gaviscon to help calm the irritation & settle her. He also asked us to call him in the morning, no matter what. We got her home, settled & administered her medication. I slept in with her in the spare room. She slept for about 30 – 40 mins before getting up & coughing. She was so very tired and couldn’t keep any water down. It was a very long night & we felt awful for her. After a really bad coughing fit at about 5.30am, she managed to sleep until 7am. She seemed a bit brighter, but when I called the vet & explained how she’d been throughout the night, he asked to see her again.

The vet examined her again & wanted to perform some tests under a general anaesthetic. This included a chest x-ray and a scope down into her lungs. The results weren’t conclusive. Her left lung was really inflamed and had quite a lot of mucus. The right lung was only inflamed at the opening. They put her on a drip, as she’d lost nearly a kilo in weight in twelve hours due to coughing up the mucus. The vet isn’t sure what caused it, whether it was some food particles in her lungs or the beginnings of a chest infection. Her bloods were normal & they sent a sample her lung mucus off for analysis, so that might tell us a bit more when the results come back.

We were really worried all day & the house seemed really quiet without her. When she woke up from the anaesthetic, she ate a bit of food, walked around in the garden at the vets & was her usual adorable self. We picked her up & she was very groggy. She slept all night & is getting back to her usual self. I have never been so worried or felt so helpless. We’re going to make sure she has a few quiet days with plenty of rest, though this is as much for us as it is for her! She will be going back for a check-up but because she’s been so much better, it’s likely that we’ll continue with her current antibiotics & that’s all. I am so grateful to the vet! He was so helpful & nothing was too much trouble, plus he was really good with Poppy and sadly, not all vets are great with dogs or people! Now all we need to do is get Poppy not to inhale her food – literally!