Brillo Update:

Brillo wouldn't eat all day after throwing up several times Thursday morning, and he threw up again around midnight. He was also straining to poop. Since that's the same behavior that eventually led up to a $1000 veterinary ER bill a couple of months ago, I was concerned. The poor baby was uncomfortable and restless Thursday night, but he eventually managed to settle down and go to sleep.

He still wouldn't eat the next morning, so I decided to take him in. He did seem a bit perkier, but it was Friday, so I feared another trip to the ER if he took a turn for the worse over the weekend when my vet would be closed.

He spent the day under observation at the clinic, but by the end of the day, they hadn't witnessed any poop or puke. I picked him up with instructions to feed him a bland diet and monitor him. As soon as we got home, after a stop at Henry's to buy his chicken and cottage cheese (because I have to cook for him, since he won't eat the canned food I promised the vet to exclusively feed him), he ran into the backyard as fast as he could. Like a pet detective, I followed to see what he was going to do. He pooped, and upon inspection, I discovered a bouncy-ball-sized dark object in his poop, along with a wad of grass (which he had been eating like a fiend to try to get whatever was in him to pass). I knew immediately what the object was: a macadamia nut off my neighbor's tree. We've been unsuccessful at keeping Brillo from running over there to steal nuts ever since he discovered them last year. He shucks them, cracks them, and extracts the raw, meaty goodness out of their center. How he discovered how to do that, I'll never know. Have you ever tried to crack a mac nut? I think they're constructed of forged steal. Not. Easy.

I'd always known the day would come when he would either choke on a nut or get a hideous blockage from swallowing one. We can thank God he didn't choke, and that he was able to pass it, because that thing never would have shown up on an xray. Whew! I wonder if he'll be as eager to eat those nuts, now. Knowing him, I suspect he will...

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark...