heart-sick, and lung-sick too (but don’t worry!)

June 23, 2011 By in Stevie Wonder Tags: , 30 Comments

Poor Stevie Wonder is so heartsick, that sometimes she lays around the house in despair, looking like this:

Why, you might ask? Because she’s filled with unrequited love. Love for this handsome devil:

And these two irresistible lovelies:

I know, I know what you’re thinking. How could these three beauties resist Stevie Wonder’s charms and leave her with such heartache?

Well, the fault is all mine. You see, Miss Stevie is lung-sick. She is being treated for the highly contagious kennel cough (aka bordatella), and isn’t allowed to enjoy any makeout sessions with her would-be doggie friends. This means that no matter how much she would like to (and she would very very much like to), she can’t play with our neighbor Flash and his beautiful new sister/girlfriend Nahla or Chick — not until her treatment is over next week, and then another two weeks.

She does steal tiny sniffs every now and then when I can’t grab her fast enough, but for the most part, the poor girl has only us to wag her tail at and sniff noses with.

Bordatella is similar to the human flu: highly contagious between dogs in close quarters and though it is only threatening to dogs with compromised immune systems or dogs who are very young or very old, it’s still a little unpleasant and a bit of a pain. There is a vaccine, but like the vaccine for the human flu, it’s imperfect. Bordatella has many strains and the strains mutate quickly, so there is no guarantee that the strain that Miss Stevie has is one of the ones that Chick is vaccinated against. Miss Stevie is feeling much better, but her antibiotics course lasts another six days, and she has to be quarantined for another two weeks after that to be totally safe.

In the house, this means we have to keep the dogs totally separate. If we were being responsibly cautious, this would also mean separate water bowls, all separate kongs and toys, and entirely separate dog beds. Ideally, the dogs would be kept on separate floors so that little air is shared between them. Unfortunately we are lazy and our house is small, so we just do the best we can. So far so good.

I tried to explain the rules to dear Stevie Wonder, and she was quite exasperated. She very cleverly pointed out to me that four weeks of quarantine in human years is like five months in dog years!

Poor Stevie Wonder.

30 responses

  1. omg that picture of Chick cracked me up!

    Poor Stevie. I hope her quarantine time passes quickly! That can’t be fun. And if Stevie and/or Chick are anything like my dogs when there’s another dog in the house that they can’t see (but that they can hear/smell), I’m sure you guys aren’t having much fun keeping them separated!

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  3. Awww poor girl, well that explains a lot. Kennel cough is a horrible thing to try and get rid of once it has gotten started in a group. Do try and take as many precautions as you can (yeah I would say the toys and water bowls too if you can). We dealt with it often at a vet I worked at, among the kennel dogs… and it was a huge pain. We had to mop up after dogs walking through with bleach water, and they were quarantined to their own room, with no contact at all to other dogs except those with it as well. It would be horrible for someone else to catch it and have to go through the 4 weeks too like she is. Hopefully time will fly for you all and can get on a normal schedule. Thanks for the peak at Nahla and Flash too 😉
    Anna
    http://www.akginspiration.com

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  5. Wishing you a speedy recovery, Stevie Wonder.

    Remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder! 🙂 Maybe Chick will loan you that snazzy scarf when you’re feeling better.

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  6. Is that Chick? That is too funny and cute, too! Poor Stevie Wonder – again I’ll say it’s a good thing she’s in good hands and getting the care and love she requires and deserves. Keep us posted!!

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  8. Poor Stevie! That is a very cautious protocol for Kennel Cough, but better safe than sorry! I’ve never had trouble with my pups getting KC from a sick foster, and I’m pretty lazy about quarantine too. How do you keep your lovebirds apart? Crate time, or just baby gates and closed doors?

    http://parkerskye.blogspot.com/

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    • We do kind of a combo. Chick does not crate, but he does go into “his room” which is also our den. He is perfectly happy to sleep on the couch there. Stevie does have a crate in our guest room, which is where she hangs when it’s Chick’s turn. We also separate them into rooms with me and Ben when we’re both doing different things in different rooms (for example, him working in his office downstairs and me cooking on the main level). When the time comes to intro them we will do baby gates but for now, it’s too much risk of shared air and licking.

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  10. Yuck, poor Stevie. What’s a dog to do? At least you were able to catch it before it already spread. I hope the time passes by quickly for her.

    Shiva had kennel cough when we brought her home from the shelter. I remember having to give her a pill every day for a week. I blame that for her craziness. 😛 I’m sure Stevie will bounce back in no time!

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  11. Oh Stevie, no worries! Life will be perfectly wonderful in a few short weeks. Until then, enjoy lots of yummy treats and hogging your foster parents’ attention ;o)

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  14. Poor Stevie Wonder! My girl also had kennel cough when I rescued her from a local shelter. After two months of trying different antibiotics and over $300 in vet bills, nothing had worked. I resorted to this: which was $10 and worked in 4-5 days. So just wanted to share this with you in case antibiotics don’t work!

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  16. Oh, that first face is just full of the woe. Poor Stevie. You’re right. 4 weeks might as well be 4,000 years! But hang in there. I know you can do it. In the meantime, see if you can use your Woe Face to gets more treats outta FosterMomma.

    Wiggles & Wags,
    mayzie

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  18. I haven’t seen Chick on the blog in ages!!! What a handsome mand about town that boy is. It must be killing Stevie Wonder to know that debonair man is in the house out of her reach!! Get well soon Stevie Wonder!
    Diane

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  23. Poor Stevie. Tommy had kennel cough back in the early days. What a pain. It’s hard to avoid passing it around to other dogs, kinda like kids in nursery school. Hope everybody gets a clean bill of health soon!

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