In the middle of the night in December of 2020 Lira got up from bed and vomited on the floor at about 2 AM. By 6 AM she began having a little blood in the vomit. From there she continued to vomit about every hour until we got her into the vet at 8 AM the moment they opened their door. They admitted her, started medications, and IV fluids. She continued to vomit.
After 4 days hospitalized unable to keep anything down and on IV medications for nausea, antibiotics, and fluids and countless tests, x-rays, and ultrasounds my vet felt like he’d run out of options and send us back to the university hospital.
Lira remained hospitalized for another 7 days without a clear diagnosis, receiving supportive care and having her stomach drained via tube inserted through her nose. And then she started getting better. She came home with a best guess of idiopathic hemorrhagic gastroenteritis – which basically means “we don’t know what caused your dog to vomit blood for days”.
6 months later, Lira became ill again in exactly the same way. She spent another 12 days in ICU at the University Hospital without answers. Best guess this time was irritable bowel disease (IBD) or maybe a malabsorption issue. We switched to a hydrolyzed diet and ran more tests which ruled out malabsorption.
And then another 6 months, and another 2 week hospitalization. This time they called me to discuss quality of life and ask if we wanted to come in and say goodbye. She was really, really ill. She had lost 35% of her body weight, was completely uninterested in food, was having her stomach drained of fluid that kept filling up, and they just didn’t have any answers.
Even typing this makes it hard to breathe.
We went to see her, but not to say goodbye. Our girl was still in there, even as sick as she was she covered us with kisses. And she started to get better. She came home eating every 4 hours around the clock to build her body condition back up and taking 7 medications every day.
She came back home again without answers, but I had been busy.

Being An Advocate for Your Dog

The university veterinary teaching hospital near us is one of the best in the US – and if they didn’t have answers I knew they wouldn’t be easy to find. I Googled, and read veterinary journals and articles, I reached out in Facebook groups to find people with similar experiences, I called specialists, I emailed people, I found vet “influencers” on social media and reached out to them. Since she’d first gotten sick we’d kept a log of everything she ate, every medicine she took, and every bowel movement. I knew someone, somewhere, would have an idea that might help.
And I found an internal medicine specialist at a specialty hospital an hour away. I made an appointment and prepared Lira’s history – a massive 40 page binder detailing her medical history (so while I know this is getting long, I promise it’s the short version!).
And Dr. Whitehead gave us some more possibilities. And we did more testing. We did a biopsy of the lining of her stomach and found a helicobacter bacteria (h. pylori) which he thought might be the cause. We treated her for h. Pylori and fingers crossed and knock on wood we’re nearly a year from her last episode and she’s the healthiest she’s ever been. She’s back to playing with the other dogs, rocking at her weekly canine nose work sessions, and going with me just about everywhere.
Dr. Whitehead recommended we keep her on a limited ingredient novel protein diet, so we worked with a veterinary nutritionist to come up with a balanced homemade diet. Lira gets bored, so we alternate between a ground bison base and a catfish base. She also refuses to eat any food that’s been cooked and refrigerated. Right now, I’m cooking catfish – 7 days a week to prepare her meals. And when she’s tired of catfish I cook fresh ground bison – 7 days a week. And I’ll keep doing it every day as long as I have the opportunity.