Cocker Kaopectate…

Marshall got a haircut last week.  Against my wishes, he got cut way too short.  I have very loosely specific ideas about how a cocker should look.  The official Cocker Cut makes it look as if the dog is wearing a dress.  I’m sorry, not even if my dog was female would I suffer a doggie do like that.  It’s plain old cruelty to animals.

I like my dogs fuzzy (like my women).  I think generally fuzzy is a good look for cockers (and women).

In any case, we’re sitting on the couch one evening recently and Marshall is shaking.  He can’t be cold.  It just doesn’t work that way.  Just to be safe, I wrapped him in a quilt, figuring if he didn’t like it, he’d extricate himself from it.   And like it he did… he apparently really liked it, as he got comfortable and went to sleep.  And more importantly, stopped shaking.

This proves nothing.

Before his haircut, Marshall was very itchy.  My wife was worried he had fleas.  She claims she saw them when she bathed him but I’m not sure she knows what a flea looks like.  So he ran around with a flea collar for two weeks but didn’t stop itching and biting himself.  My wife thought he had fleas again (still) but I wasn’t buying.  Some research revealed it was probably dry skin.  We’re now calling him Itchy Caca.

After the haircut it got worse but the groomer said it was definitely dry skin.  It was really annoying to sit near my best friend, who spent the majority of time eating himself and making rude noises.  As we all know, rude noises are my department and I wasn’t going to have my title usurped.

Yesterday morning there was doggie diarrhea.  Doggie diarrhea is not something that appears out of nowhere.  It is not something one sees.  Doggie diarrhea can only be discovered by stepping in it.  I don’t believe there have been any scientific studies so you’ll have to accept my experiential evidence of this (or commission your own study).

The vet said to give Marshall some Kaopectate and that should fix the issue in short order.  Yes, we have achieved Cocker Kapectate.  It’s no trouble to get him to take medicine, as he’ll eat almost anything.

Unfortunately it didn’t help much.  My wife, already hypervigilant, no doubt spent the entirety of last night awake, making sure Marshall was breathing.

An early vet appointment was kind enough to rid me of the rest of that filthy spare money I had laying about.  Marshall got some meds and the doctor’s assurance that he should be ok within a few days.  The vet said that his fur is very thick, which contributes to the itchies.

My final thought on this is that when Marshall has his hair, he doesn’t itch (or have doggie diarrhea).  It makes no sense but it doesn’t have to.  I’m the blogger, dammit!