Normal to critical condition in under 12 hours

This is Ivy. She’s a 3-year old chihuahua-Italian Greyhound-kangaroo-baby deer mix who came to us through Houston and Hurricane Harvey.

This weekend she was acting completely normally: healthy appetite, playful but had some diarrhea on Sunday evening. Since she still seemed okay, I just thought she ate something weird and would be pooping fine the next day.

At 3:30am Monday morning, we were awoken to the smell of blood and feces in our bedroom. She was just standing there on the floor, completely dazed, with blood and tissue dripping out of her butt. My boyfriend and I rushed her immediately to the animal ER. We had to wrap her in a towel to stop the blood from seeping out, but it wouldn’t stop. Edit: Cleaning up the bedroom after the fact was not fun.

She arrived in critical condition and stayed that way for 20 hours. She received liters of fluid and a blood AND plasma transfusion. They were able to get her blood pressure up and stop the bleeding. After multiple tests, the vets diagnosed her with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the cause of which is unknown. They didn’t see a foreign object in her intestines, so not sure if she ate something and passed it or contracted an infection.

I have never heard of this condition but obviously it can come on very quickly, usually within 24-hours. Ivy definitely would have died if we hadn’t taken her to the vet when we did.

I guess I want to let other dog owners know about this, although I can’t say there were any warning signs, other than the regular (not bloody) diarrhea she had the previous evening. Take diarrhea seriously.

And before any of you self-righteous people want to say anything about ‘this is part of owning a dog’ or ‘you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have’ just shut it. I’m sharing a post about my dog.