My dog Panda, who is my baby, hasn’t been feeling well the past couple of days. Wednesday night he was sound asleep and all of a sudden started yelping in pain. We thought he’d gotten caught up in the blankets (it’s happened before) and started looking to find where he was caught so we could untangle him. He wasn’t tangled up, but he had peed & pooped, plus was not “with” us, and couldn’t stand up, all of which told me that he had, once again, had a seizure. He hasn’t had a seizure in over a year. Not since we pulled him from eating the Purina Dog Chow. *sigh* So now we have to figure out what is causing the seizures.

He’s been eating and drinking fine since then, but he was throwing up today – a couple of times this morning when we got up, and then about 5 times in 30 minutes a couple of hours ago. The strange thing is – he eats his treats and he’s fine. He ate some dog food and it took over 3 hours for him to throw up. A lot of what I’ve looked up indicates this may simply be an upset stomach. I’m hoping that’s all it is, as Monday is the soonest he could see a vet because the 24/7 ER vets here DO NOT make arrangements for payment at all. I know, we’ve called them before. *sigh*

One of the things I noted while doing some internet research, was the abundance of people who feel that all food sold at Walmart, etc is crap. This is NOT true. Sorry people. Just because your vet sells it (hello, paid to sell it??), or it’s at a specialty or “feed” store does not mean it’s any better than buying Purina. I’ve read the ingredient labels on a LOT of the so-called “quality” foods and guess what? I found the SAME ingredients and the SAME percentages of crude protein, etc in Purina One and other foods sold at, GASP, Walmart.

I am sick and tired of seeing/hearing people say that if you can’t afford to spend $30.00 for a 8lb bag of food (and yes I have seen some that are that much), or if you can’t afford to run straight to the 24/7 ER vet, you shouldn’t have an animal. I actually saw where someone told a pet owner to either borrow the money or surrender the animal to a rescue facility so it can receive care. #1 – rescue facilities often DO NOT take sick animals, and if they do, unless they are a no-kill facility, they usually put the animal down. It’s much cheaper for them to put the animal down, than to treat it and most of these “rescue” facilities are frankly, broke. #2 – Some people don’t have other people who can just lend them money at the drop of a hat. All my friends and family are just as broke as I am. #3 – In case you missed the memo, most rescue facilities require you to pay a fee of as little as $25 and in some places as much as $100 to surrender an animal. So really? You think that’s going to HELP? #4 – Do you have any idea how fucking CRUEL that sounds? How about this? (Keep in mind that MANY hospital ERs will NOT see you if you do NOT have a true emergency now.) Next time your child is ill and you just don’t have the money to see the doctor and you don’t have anyone you can borrow the money from, and you can’t take them to the ER, you should have to give that child up to CPS in order to make sure they receive medical care. Wow, bet the tables are turned there, aren’t they? Well to people like me, who HAVE NO CHILDREN, our pets ARE OUR CHILDREN. So suggesting that a person surrender their pet to a rescue facility is just as cruel as telling them to surrender their children to CPS because they can’t afford a doctor’s visit.

Come on people, get a life. EVERYONE has a time when they can’t afford to take care of their animals precisely as they should, but it doesn’t mean they should have to give them up or be forced to be told what a horrible person they are. Funny that our PETS have to be treated better than our KIDS and ELDERLY!

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