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Pity Ham

Now that we are back home with the dogs, we have started the slow process of watching Rigger go down by degrees.

It's so odd that one day he was mostly fine and walking around and the next day he was unable to walk and so terribly sick.  We knew this time was coming, I just thought it would be different somehow.

He doesn't want to eat much.  Foods that he loved before have no interest for him now.  And there were very few foods that he didn't love.  He spit out an onion once.  And once at the vet when he was younger, he refused an organic dog treat.  I think that's about it for his list of "no" foods.

Now he will eat only ham and chicken, and even then he refuses those about half the time.  He doesn't want dog food, even the canned kind, which was usually enough to make him knock Ringo over trying to get to it.  We tried to give him Pediasure for the vitamins, he wouldn't even try it.  He doesn't want his doggie treats.  He even refused chocolate.

We've been putting his medicines in food, it's the easiest way to get him to take them.  But now when he doesn't want anything, it's harder to get him to take his pills.  Luckily the pills he is on right now are so small we can just poke them in his mouth and he can't find them to get them out before they dissolve.

Since ham is one of the two things he will eat now, I bought a giant ham at the store and we've been carving off chunks to give him.  I was standing there last night feeding him ham when Katie said, "Mama, Ringo is standing right behind you!  You need to give him some ham too!"

Guiltily, I turned around and offered him some ham.  I should have called him to come have some ham, but I'm so focused on getting Rigger to eat something that it didn't occur to me to include Ringo.

I held a piece of ham out to him and he sniffed it, then turned away.

The girls laughed hysterically at that, "He doesn't want your PITY HAM!"

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