In December 2021 I had a big trip planned: a few days in the States to see my son, who was with my ex-husband, and then several weeks in Europe with my boyfriend. I noticed that one of my Chihuahua/Pomeranian mixes had a few stomach issues the night before I left, but he settled down eventually, and everyone slept fine.
The next morning, I realized that he might be a little under the weather for real but didn't think the situation was incredibly dire. It was too late to cancel my trip, plus I really wanted to see my son for the holidays. I had to make a choice: stay home with my dog and miss my son and boyfriend, or go on the trip and hope that everything would be OK.
I texted the dog sitter, explained to her what had happened so far, and asked what she wanted me to do. She said to bring him over, so I did … and then things got messy.
I headed to the airport after dropping off my dogs but received a text about two hours later that told me one of them had experienced an upset stomach four times in the time that had lapsed. I was already through security and sitting at my gate, so we started strategizing. My dog sitter said she would call her vet, who makes house calls, if things got worse.
After the flight had reached its cruising altitude, I turned on my phone's Wi-Fi signal and received a flurry of texts. The dog wasn't eating, he wasn't drinking, and his stomach symptoms were now manifesting in two different ways. I'll spare you the details, but I was stressed out and worried. The dog in question is roughly only 4 or 5 pounds, so all of this felt extra scary.
From that point, my texts with the dog sitter began to take on a more serious tone. We went back and forth on what to do, and I ended up telling her that I ultimately trusted her judgment. I explained that if she felt he needed to see a vet and couldn't get in touch with me, she should just go for it, and that ended up being what happened.
Her vet was fast and arrived at her home when I was about halfway through my four-hour flight. He took samples, ran tests, and gave the sick dog medicine (and the other dog plenty of belly rubs). Everyone assured me the medicine would at least alleviate symptoms overnight, which would give the dog time to rest and hopefully begin eating and drinking again.
At this point, I made the decision that I believe made everything easier for all of us: I ceded all control and power to my (truly excellent) dog sitter. I told her to feel free to make decisions as she would for her own dog, but I was not absolving myself of responsibility. I just recognized that there wasn't much I could do from thousands of miles away, and I didn't want her to wait around for me to reply while I was in different countries.
As the hours progressed, the dog began to seem better. He had a few setbacks for the first few mornings, but by the third day he was eating boiled chicken and drinking water regularly, which everyone was excited about. All of the tests came back negative for various viruses, and to date no one is exactly sure what he had or why he was sick in the first place.
By the end of a week, he was totally back to his regular self (though now a staunch fan of boiled chicken and still eating it). Friends of mine picked him up while house sitting and reported back that he was doing great and had moved on from boiled chicken to wet and dry food mixed together, which he's still insisting on eating three weeks after the fact.
In the end, I learned a valuable lesson about control (that you can't control outcomes no matter how much you want to) and trust (that sometimes other people will make decisions that are infinitely better than what you would have come up with). My dog is happy and healthy, my dog sitter received a generous tip, and I was able to rest each night knowing he was in good hands.
To me, when it comes to trusting someone else with some of your most important family members, that's really all any of us can ask for.
