[Essay]

At Christmas, we took in a ABPT because a coworker was getting a new Sharpei puppy and didn't want to have three dogs. Since I've owned several ABPTs over the years, she knew my home would be a very safe one for the dog. She is almost a year old, very active and loving, with boundless energy, and gets along superbly with our two boys. She is currently an indoor dog for the most part, although we are repairing the chain link fencing so that she can roam more freely than a leash allows. We had her spayed last month to avoid any hard-to-place puppies in the future. The vet gave her a clean bill of health (we even had bloodwork done to look for any abnormalities that weren't obvious).

However, last night, I was in the garage (where she sleeps at night, in case of any potty accidents), cleaning the washing machine after a bubble gum "incident". I had the door open to ventilate, and the cleaner I used is more of a degreaser than anything terribly "fumey".

Tee was on her chain leash (she chewed the braided one up two days ago, while looped on a fence post outside while hubby worked on fence repair). She was fine during the first part of my cleaning, peeking around the back of the riding lawnmower and watching me quite curiously. Then she lay down.

When hubby came out to move the washing machine back into place, he noticed she was "breathing funny". Huffing a bit, mostly through her mouth, and lying on her side. I sat down with her and petted her, but she barely responded. She was completely limp and wouldn't get up. I even offered a doggie snack and she refused, which is highly unusual for her. Her belly was not bloated, swollen or hard, and she wagged her tail when I sounded distressed as I tried to figure out what was wrong.

I had to go inside and get the boys ready for bed, promising that if she was still like this, I'd roust the vet for an emergency visit.

When I came back into the garage 30 minutes later, I thought at first she'd vomited. On closer inspection, it was a very HUGE pile of poop. I grew up on a farm (we vaccinated our dogs ourselves back then), so I inspected the poop (my hubby thought this was horribly gross of me, but still)... nothing out of place for a visual inspection. No blood, no parasites large enough to see with the naked eye...

She thought this inspection was something facinated, then hopped up, bounded over to her water dish and took a few laps. Then she hunted into my pocket for the previously offered snack and took it over to "guard" by her water dish.

Since she does like to chew things (we've bought her all sorts of toys to deter her from chewing on things she shouldn't), is it possible she ate something that gave her a belly ache? Would that explain the odd behavior?

She was perfectly fine after the pooping incident. No more funny breathing, happy, playful, had to be sternly lectured a bit this morning to keep from roughhousing me when I refilled her water dish and tried to take her for a walk before work. She's had no irregularities with her bowel movements or bladder that we've noticed. We haven't changed her food or snacks, and we don't let her have people food at all.