Louis has been going through strange symptoms. Starting last Wednesday, I noticed that his poops seemed tinged in a red hue. They were firm so I was not alarmed. It'd come and go. Then this past Saturday, he had bloody diarrhea!! I had to clean his butt and rump hair cause it was smeared in poo and blood (yucky). I was concerned and tried to figure out why this was happening. I'm not new to seeing bloody in poops with 5 pets, but I didn't know if it was because he chewed on a bone and maybe swallowed a bigger piece that scrapped his rectum, or he wasn't drinking enough?? I was working so I crated him to let him rest. In the meantime, I had his poop in a bag so I called the vet, which closes on Saturday's at noon, and I had called them at 11:30AM. My sister dropped off the poop for a fecal. About three hours later, my sister let Louis out of his crate and asked me, "Didn't you clean his butt earlier??" I looked and his butt was bloody again! His butt spewed up more blood. The blood was bright red. I got even more concerned but it was strange because Louis was acting normal - normal activity levels, playful, eating, drinking just fine. I thought about taking him in, but with our many pets, we've learned to wait things out until it looks serious, like if it affects his drinking and eating habits. He never vomited so maybe it was something he ate and bothered the later digestion area. I used to take my cat (our first pet) whenever she'd so much as sneeze and we incurred so much vet bills. What else was strange is when I was cleaning Louis's rump, I noticed red blotchy areas on his skin, some looked like pinpoints, some were blotchy, some were red, some purple and blotchy. It was under his skin and it did not look like an itchy rash. It was all over his body. Legs back, neck, everywhere.
I did not have any time to go to the vet on Saturday because most were closed and I was set to leave to go out of town later that afternoon. I just kept an eye on him the whole weekend. I told my sister not to give him any people food - we've been bad by giving him a small bite of whatever we are eating and wondered if that was the cause. She gave him some chicken from a chicken wing she ate, I had a salad with gyro meat from there - and we both had such bad diarrhea afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if that place put something in their food or maybe it was bad meat? His poops improved by Monday and today his stools look normal. The last bowel movement he had was firm but had blood in it that was darker (looked more digested, or old). And now he's fine. And in all this time, he never showed any signs he had anything wrong!! His fecal test came back negative for parasites. So I don't know what happened here. His skin is looking normal, he has some blotchy areas on his back, but the rest is gone away.
I did not have any time to go to the vet on Saturday because most were closed and I was set to leave to go out of town later that afternoon. I just kept an eye on him the whole weekend. I told my sister not to give him any people food - we've been bad by giving him a small bite of whatever we are eating and wondered if that was the cause. She gave him some chicken from a chicken wing she ate, I had a salad with gyro meat from there - and we both had such bad diarrhea afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if that place put something in their food or maybe it was bad meat? His poops improved by Monday and today his stools look normal. The last bowel movement he had was firm but had blood in it that was darker (looked more digested, or old). And now he's fine. And in all this time, he never showed any signs he had anything wrong!! His fecal test came back negative for parasites. So I don't know what happened here. His skin is looking normal, he has some blotchy areas on his back, but the rest is gone away.