Stress affects dogs too...

From the desk of Kess' mama:

Kess has been suffering from stress-related ailments. Our beagle went to boarding for a week as both J and I were away for work. When she came back, she had no appetite and refused to eat her breakfast. which if you've been following this blog, will know it's unusual for this greedy beagle. In all her 9 years +, the only other time she refused to eat was after her surgery when we spayed her. Even after drinking water, she would vomit. It took 3-4 days after her return before she was back to normal. When we were in Malaysia, she had gone to boarding before and there were no issues. I suspect she's not fully recovered from the move or from being crated! She feels insecure because she's out of her comfort zone as clearly evidenced by her tucked down tail. Usually, her tail will be up in the air like a wavy flag.

Recently, we had to board her for 1 night at a nearby boarding place. When she came back, she had a runny tummy. In fact, when we woke up this morning, she discovered she had a poop accident in the house...we spent quite some time cleaning up her trail of runny poop! Usually, Kess is very good with regards to controlling her bowel until we take her out in the morning once we wake up. On hindsight, there were a few other times when she had a runny tummy, after a stress trigger event.

We've decided to hire a full-time helper to provide more stability for Kess. Hopefully, things will improve once we get full-time help and she won't need to go for boarding when we travel. It'll also give us flexibility to go out without worrying about her separation anxiety.

Cat attack

The phrase "Fighting like cats and dogs" has new meaning for this beagle. My humans and I were walking back home after our long evening walk yesterday. We took a short cut home and saw a stray cat sitting in the middle of the pavement. Now, we were just minding our own business, walking by the side to pass this cat. I was very well behaved and did not even try to sniff at the cat.

As we were passing by, the cat suddenly lunged at us, hissing and swiping its claws. We immediately retreated. I was terrified! My human quickly grabbed a fallen palm leaf on the ground and using that as a "shield", managed to get the cat to move to the side. We then quickly walked pass, with my humans keeping an eye out to make sure the cat did not come after us. Once we were safely away from the cat, my humans examined me and found that my ear was bleeding. The cat had managed to swipe my ear. Luckily my humans had a pack of wet wipes in their doggie bag, so they did their best to clean up the blood and stop the bleeding. When we got home, they used some mild antiseptic solution to clean it further. Thankfully, my rabies jab is up to date...Anyway, here I am recovering from the unprovoked attack. The wound didn't look so bad after the blood was wiped off.


This morning, my human recounted the story of the cat attack to some of the regular dog-walkers during our walk. It turns out that this nasty cat has tried to attack other dogs that have walked past as well. Looks like we have to be more careful if we encounter the cat again.

Cats and this beagle just don't get along. I got swiped on my cheek by a cat before when I was on border patrol. However, that was perhaps understandable since it was a confrontational situation. This time, it was totally unprovoked. I think I'm going to stay clear of cats from now on...