April 13, 2021
Tuesday
One Sick Puppy
US recommends 'pause' for J&J shots in blow to vaccine drive (apnews.com)
The pause is probably the right thing to do as it allows for the development of a monitoring and treatment protocol. But, the rate at which these clots occur is ridiculously low; lower, even, that some clotting related issues that occur with COVID itself (pulmonary embolism, etc.). Barring a sudden onslaught of these cases, which seems unlikely, I expect the JNJ vaccine will be back online in relatively short order.
UK hits vaccine target; Johnson warns of more virus deaths (apnews.com)
Wow–Britain has an enviable vaccine adoption rate: "about 95% of [its people over 50] received one."
Our rollout in the U.S. is chugging along, with some impressive volume. I've been growing a bit nervous about our overall adoption rate though, and am now a bit jealous of Britain's.
Lucy and Teddy have developed a game that, for a cat dealing with a new puppy in the house, we thought was fairly cute. Lucy is still cautious of Teddy, but they've started "playing together" in a simple way–Lucy knocks something off the table, and Teddy picks it up and plays with it. Harmless fun, so we thought.
Sometime this afternoon, Lucy knocked a bottle of Advil off the island and Teddy started playing with it. I'm sure it felt like a toy, all rattly and everything. He proceeded to chew the bottle, getting the lid off and even tearing a hole in it at the bottom.
We don't know how many pills were left in the bottle, but he got ahold of some of them. We found 17 on the floor, separate from the vomit. I think the bottle was near the end, so hopefully he didn't get many.
But, even a small dose of ibuprofen can be toxic to dogs (they can't clear it like we can). He vomited at least four times at home. We took him to the hospital, and they're now keeping him under observation, which means giving him charcoal to absorb anything that's left and pumping him full of fluids to protect the kidneys.
He's got a rough 48 hours ahead of him, but I think he'll be ok.
