We've survived the weekend and are well on the road to recovery. It wasn't easy. First of all, I found out how weak my stomach is; the vomiting and diarrhea were something I couldn't deal with. Fuzzy had to do almost all of the cleanup (no use in having two of us puking up the basement). Friday night through Sunday afternoon were pretty bad. Most of the time DJ didn't move. We kept him warm and covered in big beach blankets on pool pads (those thick float pads) with a whelping pad to help warm him. We weren't prepared for this and our energies faded quickly with round-the-clock care.

DJ has kept rice and chicken down for two days but his eyes were pleading for a more substantial diet. He seemed to be saying, "I'm a starving dog and this is all I get??" so we've added a small amount of kibble to his food. This was a bit sooner than we expected, but his stomach seems to be fine and the rice, chicken, yogurt and kibble were graciously received this morning (he did his "DJ Dance"). Last night I took him out of the garage for his first potty break outside since he came home. It may sound selfish, but I didn't want the neighbors to see him in such bad shape and call animal control saying we're abusing a dog in our basement. He was so excited he started dancing in the driveway - if you can imagine a 100 lbs. bag of bones dog with a 1/4 body cast "dancing" - hahahaha! He's so anxious to rejoin the family upstairs, but we're giving him one more night in the basement before we move him up. Since Scott doesn't work on Thursday, we'll move him up then so Scott will be available to take him out.

The funniest part for me was watching DJ try so hard to hit the puppy pads scattered all over the garage. The diarrhea was so explosive (that's the best word I can find for it), it would blow the pads out of the way. And he's so big he couldn't line himself up on them for a pee anyway. He get very high marks for trying.

The rescue group we're working with has been fantastic. They've been so supportive and I don't think we could have gotten through without them. I had to stay strong because Scott couldn't give the sub-q's and Scott had to strong to clean up the messes. From Friday morning until Monday morning, he and I were opearting on about 10 hrs. sleep between the two of us. Thankfully, our DJ is back.

Scott brought up a very good point that I had only partially considered: Now that we've gotten him through this, how are we going to just give him up? How can we be objective when we get an application for review? I guess we'll find out.