Solomon: dog or cow?

If you don't know we have an adorable dog named Solomon.  Solomon is almost 8 years old and is part of our family. He is our American dog in England!!

We had a bit of a scare two weeks ago with Solomon.  Everything seemed well until Thursday evening he seemed a bit down and got sick after eating his dinner.  He didn't keep any food down on Friday so we took him to the vet Friday evening.  They thought he could have picked up a tummy bug which was causing him to be sick or perhaps he had a blockage of some sort.  Hoping for just a tummy bug (the easier and cheapier option) they gave Solomon a shot and some medicine to give him.  We were to give him a small amount of food on Saturday.  If it threw that up we would have to go back to the vet's straight away.

Nevertheless, 20 minutes after eating his breakfast Saturday morning Solomon got sick again.  We took him back to the vet's where they were going to keep him and take an x-ray of his body to see if there were any problems.  A few hours later they called back saying that the x-ray showed his stomach was full.  Knowning that it had been 48 hours since he had kept anything down this made no sense.  The end resulted in an operation to empty his stomach and find the problem.  It was a worrying few hours until the vet called.  Solomon was fine.  He had eaten some type of fabric which upset his stomach so much that he gorged himself on grass.  The fabric and grass compressed in his stomach.  He had eaten so much grass that it could have filled a football.  The vet's words were: "He isn't a dog.  He's a cow."

We were able to pick Solomon up from the vet's on Monday evening.  He felt very sorry for himself and would just lie on his bed and cry.  It did look painful as you can see below.

The concern after the surgery was infection.  Solomon was on several different medicines for the pain and to prevent infection.  He went to the vet on the Thursday of that week and then again on Tuesday this past week to get his stitches out.  Solomon has healed very well and almost back to himself now.  His stomach is looking much better and is back to begging for food and walks again.  It is glad to have him back to normal and hopefully we won't have to do this again.  It is also amazing how quickly his hair do grow...This was a week after his surgery.

Thanks for everyone who left us messages on facebook, asked about Solomon and even prayed for our boy.  He is very much part of the family and will be a sad day when he goes....luckily, we have awhile before that happens!!