Yesterday wasn’t such a great day for our labrador ‘Stupid’. The wife and I decided we’d get up and walk to the shops to buy milk and the Sunday papers taking the dogs with us. We st off at 10:00 or so on a bright sunny morning.
We took an hour or so to wander there and back detouring through the ‘dog park’ so the animals could get a run and a drink before carrying on. On the way back we stopped at anotehr park to wet them both down and make sure they had another drink. Ordinary enough so far.
But then we got back to the park opposite the house with the dogs trotting along beside us and as usual I stopped to take off Stupid’s halter… however this time instead of lurching off into the bushes… he fell over!
To begin with we thought he was just messing about… as he dies… and carried on across the road to the house, but it took him another 5 mins to gather enough strength to make the short walk up the driveway and into the pool.
Once in he *really* showed signs of distress. His back legs stopped working and he started to look as if he’d drown in there so we got changed and got in with him. Took ages but eventually he reovered enough to drink something but it was late in the afternoon before he began to look as if he would survive and even that was only after throwing up badly. He’s ok this morning… we went for the usual walk and he managed perfectly well.
So what was wrong? Well anyones guess really. It was hot… but no worse than any other day… maybe 36 degrees. Maybe his ‘halter’ was too tight around his nose and he couldn’t pant properly. Or maybe he ate something on the way round that we didn’t notice. I have no idea.
If anyone wants to make an educated guess his most obvious symptoms were, temporary paralysis of his back legs, shivering, accelerated heart beat and breathing… and throwing up. Beats me.
The Eclectic Interweb 