Benson's been doing a weird thing for months. Ghost pooping! He gets in the position to poop, does a poopwalk and nothing comes out. He does this like three times on the walk, then he poops normal. The joke has been he can't tell the difference between a poop and a fart! Since there was never any change in behavior or health I just chalked it up to Benson being Benson.
On Saturday Benson decided to make my weekend extra special fun by throwing up. Sunday it became apparent he was also severely constipated. After two bad days of straining hard every time he went outside he finally had a fairly normal poop Monday. But I wanted peace of mind and know he didn't have a blockage. I paid the ransom for the urgent care appt so the vet could see him yesterday. I am not complaining mind you--this woman answered my email on a SUNDAY! Dr Amy is a doll.
Long and short of it is it was a two prong problem. The x rays showed a big block of poop so she did a rectal and tried to examine it. He had eaten something--we know not what. She said, "I don't know how to explain it--White material stuff--like a tampon maybe?" I said, "Look at my face! (meaning all the sags and wrinkles LOL) not a tampon! LOL" She says Well I didn't want to assume
I said Like the stuffing from a toy? She says Maybe? My guys don't shred toys though! She says yeah shelties for the most part don't. So we are stumped as to what he ate that made him sick, but that explained the vomiting and the constipation.
However the x ray did solve the ghost poop mystery! It showed his prostate is pushing up against his colon, seriously narrowing it. So he has to strain to get it past that narrow part of the pipe! This means Benson will be getting snipped here pretty quick.
So the moral of the story is if your sheltie is ghost pooping don't ignore it!
Signed
Nancy Drew
