It has been a long month since Bogey died. Birdie showed so many signs of grieving for Bogey - walking slowly with her nose down to the ground, not raising her head to look at you, being lethargic and wanting to sleep all the time and cowering and hiding. At about the 3rd week she even acted like she was in pain when we tried to pick her up. I decided to take her to the vet and see if more was wrong than just depression. It turns out she had a piece of cheat grass in her ear and also was having bad muscle spasms in her back. The vet gave her a shot that is a slow-release, long-lasting steroid. All this week she has been staying still in her pet carrier. When she walks she looks like she is hunching her back. It is so sad. Today there were some signs of recovery as she walked around the kitchen a little bit. She does eat well now, where before she was not very enthusiastic about it. She looks like she is sleeping a little more peacefully and comfortably tonight. So, with a few more weeks of limited activity, I am expecting her to be back to normal. We will have to be extra diligent to keep her from jumping up or down though as she could tweak her back again.
After taking care of Bogey for 2 weeks and now Birdie, it has been a long, worrisome month. Very frustrating when you can't figure out why your pet is acting the way they do and then finding out that what you thought was wrong (depression) was not what was really wrong. I know Jesus said "Do not be anxious about anything" but that is very, very hard to actually do.