Being a dog mom

Last Saturday, I had to take Lilly to the vet because she vomited.  It made me nervous because it was the second time in the last 3 weeks.  As any dog mom would do (or is it just me?), I called my boss to tell her that I will not be coming to work in the morning and took Lilly to the vet.  We are not entirely sure why she randomly vomits, but the vet suspected that she might be eating her food too quickly.  Honestly, that might be entirely true.  See, Lilly finishes her food in less than 1 minute; she eats as if it's going to be her last meal.  The vet thought that she might be having stomach upset, or more like an indigestion, from rarely chewing.  My examination of her vomit content confirmed that (I know, it's really gross), although she ATE half of her vomit before I could clean it up.  Ewww indeed.

An interesting suggestion by the vet led to putting a giant rock in middle of her food bowl.  Thank goodness there are rocks everywhere in my apartment complex.  Some neighbors might think of me as a weird person for staring at rocks for half an hour...I was making sure I chose the right rock.

The rock is supposed to help her slow down with eating.  Since she can't dive her head into the bowl, she will have to work around the rock to eat food.  I even timed her next eating - she seems to be eating a little slower. Lilly is still very clever and begun to figure out a way to push the rock out of the bowl while eating...that dog.  So, yesterday I found ANOTHER rock and put it in her bowl - 2 rocks now.  I timed her and it took her about 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  That is probably the slowest I have ever seen her finish the bowl.  Today, I found one of the rocks on the floor; it appears she is getting more and more clever.

Lately, this is what I had been dealing with as a dog mom.  It is definitely a good practice before having kids.  Of course it's nothing compared to raising humans, but Lilly is teaching me unconditional love, patience, and responsibility.  She is such a sweet little thing. By the way, I found out she gained 3 pounds in 3 months...I am fattening her too quickly.

Today, she finally got a haircut! I couldn't see her eyes for a little while; she was literally getting buried in her own fur.  Although she was terrified at Petsmart, the groomer took a really good care of her and returned to us with more polished/cute/clean look.  I'm glad I could finally see her cute, big eyes again.