We had a scare tonight with Penny and ended up at Animal Emergency all in a mere 25 minutes or so.

We were sitting outside, and Penny was on the lawn basking in the sun and rolling in the grass. I don't use any pesticide on my grass at all, or harmful chemicals anywhere in my yard or gardens. She sat up suddenly, and we thought she had been bitten or startled by a bug, because she had such a funny, puzzled face on. She immediately stood up, snorted two or three times.... and then she started to salivate. I mean.... drool.... blowing big spit bubbles. I was immediately concerned, and initially thought it was heat stroke because she had been laying in the warm sun.

We brought her on the porch, and she practically collapsed on her bead. I sprayed her face with the hose (She loves to drink from it), but she didn't drink, and the drool was sticky and ran from her mouth. We brought her right inside, still thinking it was the sunshine, and she practically collapsed against the couch, closed her eyes... still drooling. Then we smelled poo... she was having an uncontrolled BM on the rug while laying down.

Super scared, we wrapped her in a blanket and rushed to the hospital. We already thought she might have been bitten (not thinking that heat stroke causes poop). Got to the ER vet in about 15 minutes (this is after work, after a glass of wine and after driving like a banchee woman).

They examined her, all her vitals were good by then.. she sort of snapped out if it about two minutes before we got there. They cleaned her up, we chatted with the vet... and found a site near the front of her mouth on the bottom of her jaw that had turned red. It was determined that she had been bitten, we got a benedryl shot and a steroid shot and were sent on our way.

So... after looking at some stuff online, we think it might be possible that she had a seizure after getting bit by something. Anaphalaxis in the least! Anyone had experience with this?? It was terrifying....

I am declaring war on all insects in my front yard.... I MAY have cried semi-hysterically on the way to the vet!

Our older Berner Shady had the exact same thing happen about 3 yrs ago. We figured out quite quickly she'd been stung by either a wasp or a bee. She foamed at the mouth and raced around eating as much grass as she could. She is now quite skittish whenever they are buzzing about. She is an absolutely fearless dog who has chased black bears off our property but those pesky wasps and bees drive her crazy and so she likes to lie in the house whenever they are active. We do wasp control with those fake paper nests and also wasp spray but we leave the bees alone as they are so good for the environment. Poor Shady! Her only hangup! It's a scary thing, though, whenever the dogs have gotten into something new. Recently, out little grandson gave up his entire drumstick of chicken to our male berner Leo who of course, gulped it down in a second. Fortunately, because he is a gulper of food, it didn't splinter and we watched him carefully for blockages for a couple of weeks and everything must have passed OK because after about 5 weeks we've had no troubles. Our vet told us some crazy stories about dogs swalllowing all kinds of stuff when we called him in a panic that night. Most dogs are OK at passing stuff but you have to be diligent at watching them for a week or two to be sure.