Poor Effie sometimes gets the shar pei fever, an autoimmune disease where her hocks swell and she shivers and can't get comfortable and it's terrible. This is the second time she's had it this year, which isn't TOO bad; some shar peis get it a lot more frequently and a lot worse.
We took her to the vet recently, so we knew there wasn't some horrible underlying condition causing the fever. But it is, hilariously, often brought on by stress and, while nothing TOO crazy has been going on here at Casa Creampuff, the time change plus a few sets of dinner guests must have put her over the edge.
Someone's dog is a delicate flower.
Sunday morning, I was walking her and realized, a half hour in to our hour long walk, at the furthest point away from the house, the fever was upon us. Effie slows down to senior speed when she gets sick, so it took us over 45 minutes to get home. She spent the rest of the day pretty zonked out after we gave her some medication and before long, she was on the mend but still very slow for a few days.
I'd rather she wasn't sick but I won't lie, once she's over the worst, it is very relaxing; she's so chill in the house, doesn't give a rat's ass about other dogs or noises outside, still loves to walk but just real slow. My dream is that this is how she'll be as a senior.
By far the most upsetting thing about the fever, though, is that a few days after she recovers, her beautiful hippo face shrinks and she looks like an idiot.
It took several weeks for her snoot to puff back up after she was sick in April - send fat thoughts to our little pudge!!!
