Ruby has survived the implied "parvo" infection and lived to thrive another day. For hevvinsake.

Here she is engaged in a great mock "fight" with Charley the Golden Retriever. The fact that he's at least five times bigger than she doesn't seem to faze her!

Her chronic case of the doggywobbles seems to be slowly resolving. Thursday while my son and I were in Scottsdale conferring with the surgeon (mine, not Pup's), we stopped at one of those absurdly high-end pet stores for the richerati. It was an amusing experience. Ridiculousness aside, I did find a nice leather leash of the right weight -- something that seems no longer to be available for the hoi polloi who frequent places like Petsmart and Petco. And...what should pop out at me but a concoction called "Pet Pectillin," allegedly just the stuff to ease your dawg's diarrhea.  

The ingredients are kaolin and pectin.

Huh..., thought I. Those sound familiar. The stuff was cheap enough, so I bought some and once at home, looked it up on the Net.

Yea verily: the reason they sounded familiar is that kaolin and pectin were the active ingredients of the OLD formulation of Kaopectate, a snake oil that used to be highly effective against the human gollywobbles. Unfortunately, Kaopectate has been reformulated and now contains salicylates, which you probably shouldn't give to your dog, at least not without a vet's advice. So don't even think of running down to the Walgreen's to get that as a substitute.

Kaolin is a type of clay that helps to bind up loose bowels a bit, and it soothes the irritated digestive tract. And pectin -- the stuff you use when you're canning fruit -- is a soluble dietary fiber that, according to that avatar of human knowledge, Wikipedia, "binds to cholesterol in the gastrointestinal tract and slows glucose absorption by trapping carbohydrates."

Pectin, once a common anti-diarrheal, has been declared useless by the FDA. However, members of the holistic herbal set persist in believing it coats and soothes the intestine. More credibly, a 2000 research study reported in the American Journal of Critical Care indicated a mild, if vague, positive effect on diarrhea under pretty extreme conditions.

What the heck: looks harmless.

Meanwhile, in the not so harmless department, as I reported about a week ago, Ruby was not gaining weight as a puppy should. Indeed, she was beginning to look emaciated. Readers here responded with the advice that one can of dog food/day provided only about half a corgi pup's caloric requirement. So, I tried feeding her four small meals a day, effectively doubling her food intake.

Upshot of that was that she began regurgitating food undigested. After the third or fourth meal of the day, up it would come. Apparently it was too much food for her to take in.

So I put her on a "bland diet" -- starting with chicken and rice. Right now she's up to cooked hamburger and rice, and has been doing well. She gets three 4- to 6-ounce portions a day, about 30% to 50% more than Cassie, a very active adult, gets.

She began to gain weight fast. In the past few days, she's taken on about three pounds, up from 11 pounds to 14 pounds as of 6:00 this morning. Check this out!

That is mostly solid muscle. This little dog has flanks made of rock. She and Cassie tear around the yard every morning in the cool of the day, and so she gets her exercise before the heat comes up. A week ago, her ribs and backbone were standing out -- she looked half-starved.

However, the diarrhea persisted, even on the bland diet.

Thursday evening I tried the Pectillin product, in a slightly smaller dose than recommended for her weight. Gave her another dose yesterday. And by golly: this morning all the backyard mounds are actually mounds and not puddles.

Something is working. Whether it's tincture of time, a diet of "real" food as opposed to the commercial junk, or the doggy version of old-fashioned Kaopectate, I do not know.

Ruby and Cassie spend a great deal of time in motion. There's the Mock Fight (Cassie is barking here, not threatening to remove Pup's head -- the Mock Fight entails a fair amount of barking on both contestants' parts)...

And the Toy Competition...

And Ride-em, Pup!

After all this, it's time for a nap:

Their lives are spent in frenetic motion or sleep, with little (other than eating, beloved eating) in between.