Ozzie and I went to the WSU Vet School for a 10:30 AM appointment; yes, he looks now like a kidney dog, not a chemo cancer dog. Ozzie woke me at 5 AM to go outside and pee, and when he and I got up at 8 AM he had to go outside to pee and vomit; he's so weak that he lost his balance while he was vomiting outside. Later he drank a little, but that, too, came up. Ozzie and I are now at the Vet School's reception area (hooray for wireless) awaiting the results of a blood draw. I expect he'll need fluids, and I will ask to learn how to do the subcutaneous (SQ) injections at home to help his kidneys function. Our hope is to keep the kidneys functioning well enough to allow the chemo to give Ozzie some more quality weeks and maybe months.

The blood work indicated Ozzie white cell counts are down, maybe a reaction to Tuesday's chemo; to counteract the infection he was given an antibiotic and also some fluids to help his kidneys along. Actually his kidneys weren't really much different than they were the last time he was there. But at home he's still not eating, and we're drawing a firm line to feed only the kidney diet food; Ozzie walks over to his food bowl, but walks away not eating it. He keeps getting a little closer to the bowl, but no bites yet. The good part is that he does drink water. Again, this is all very frustrating and stressful. We don't want Ozzie to suffer, which he's not doing yet; but I could really use a good day for him to perk me up.

Saturday actually was a slightly better day. Ozzie is feeling better, he's still not happy with his new food choices, but he is drinking water better. I managed to coax him to eat a little of the K/D kidney diet food, but he was reluctant to eat more than a couple nibbles. I can tell he's hungry, but he refuses to eat his new, lower protein foods. I don't want to break down and feed him things he's not supposed to have, just to get him to eat. Our local vet gave us some liver treat "dust" to sprinkle lightly on his food to entice him to eat it; nope, that didn't work. I bought some Iams Savory Sauces to put on his food; the beef flavor must not have disguised the kidney diet smell and/or taste. I was hoping that would work since it has vitamins, minerals, and antioxidents in it, but nope; good idea, though.

There *must* be some dog psychology involved here somehow, but I don't know the trick. I cannot believe he would starve himself to death instead of eating the taste-free kidney diet food.

Sunday brought a little brightness to the situation, Ozzie wants to eat, but the challenge of the day was to determine was exactly was he would eat. Today I bought five other types of dog food in the hope that one of them would spark his desire to eat. In Ozzie's last round of chemo (Sept - March), to help with his anemia he would have some Lixotinic (liquid vitamins and minerals); when I gave him some Lixotinic this afternoon Ozzie licked his lips, which signaled to me that he wanted to eat. So, by dipping some bread and cooked ground beef in the Lixotinic, he would eat a little food. If he had not eaten today, I was almost ready to give up on him. How thin could he get and still survive? Anyway, Ozzie followed me around in the kitchen, so I started to poke around to see what he would eat. Even though Ozzie may not have had the most balanced meals today, he ate, and maybe tomorrow will bring more progress.