well, we made it through today, Sunday, and
now i feel like an idiot i did not even know i should stop feeding a dog who has diarrhea. duh. thank you Sara, for telling me this.
I should have stopped his solid foods a day ago, when we first realized he was having diarrhea...........i could have spared him a whole other day of this distress and loss. I tried to get a sample to bring to the vets, but, it is just water now, and nothing to pick up.
then i read on the internet how bad off that is, to look like water, that that is a emergency serious diarrhea, and the dog might need an IV.
Soon as we put Buddy on liquids only, his watery diarrhea stopped.
By then, my dog also looked pretty poorly to me, his eyes did not look right to me. Maybe kind of sunken in, almost, and his whole facial expression looked wrong...as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.
Hard to explain, but i looked at him at some point today, and realized, he is weak, feels lousy, and is probably dehydrated. His belly did not seem painful to him when i felt around on it, but, he feels way too skinny now.
He was not drinking much liquids today.
I even tried a bit of weak broth, but he wouldn't drink any.
Why do kids and dogs ALWAYS get sick on the weekends???
He looked lousy, and was laying around, fairly listless. so i fed him ice cubes, which he has always loved, ice cubes.
Every hour or so, i handed him ice cubes, he always took them. I put a tiny bit of salt into my hand, and had BUddy lick this off, to help perk up his thirst, as he seemed dehydrated and "out of it", imo.
I tried to find this stuff, K9 electrolytes, a liquid to give dogs who have diarrhea, to replace their electrolytes lost in diarrhea and on a fast, but, none of the pet supply places on my side of town sold it.
But the internet said, it's okay to give a dog Pedialyte, a liquid electrolyte supplement for kids with diarrhea. HOpe that is true, cuz i did it. I could not find any slippery elm like Sara uses.
So i got some Pedialyte, one bottle of flavorless, and one bottle of apple flavored.
and Buddy wouldn't drink any.
so i added a lil bit of the water out of a tuna can into the bowl of Pedialyte, and he drank it then.
He loves tuna.
then i poured some Pedialyte into lil plastic containers, shallow, about 1/2 inche deep, and froze it several of these lil slabs of frozen Pedialyte.
Soon as it froze, i took that lil chunk of ice, and put it into sandwhich bag, and broke it into bits, which---being in ice form------Buddy readily accepted and chomped right down.
YESsssssssss, felt so good to get some nutrients into him.
Then, after 18 hours of no food, and no diarrhea,
i took some pedialyte and used it for the water to make some rice,
and gave him a small amt of rice. He snarfed it down, and spent several minutes licking the bowl spotless, is nothing wrong with his appetite.
I wanted to use potatos, but my dog gets gassy if he gets too much potatoes, and he seemed so fragile, i didn't want to risk upsetting his tummy.
I salted the rice a bit, too, to help perk up his thirst. Salt is normally not great to give to dogs, but, salt is your friend when you need to get fluids into a dog (or an otherwise healthy human, too)
He has still not had any diarrhea, since the rice 8 hours ago.
Tomorrow, i will give him some rice and a wee sliver of chicken for breakfast, and see how it goes. If the diarrhea returns, at least i can get a sample to bring to the doc, and we will get to the vet. I'm hoping my dog will just become his normal self again.
He was playful tonight,
much better looking than this morning. His eyes looked fine, and he was kind of perky again.
Not 100% but much better.
I *think* the worst is over, i hope,
but,
if the diarrhea returns once he resumes having solid bland foods, then it's off to the vet.
I have been especially worried,
cuz our friends new puppy was just diagnosed with Giardia.......after we had played with and handled and held this pup, and walked all over his yard, etc, and then maybe tracked some germs back to Buddy...this has been on our minds all weekend, is,
what if Buddy has Giardia, and would need an IV...
but, hopefully, it was just a bad weekend, and he will be fine to slowly advance onto bland diet, now that his lil colon has had a chance to rest...i hope.
He is lucky for having you to care for him. 
Then they make it even worse by making it late at night, in the wee hours of the morning, in the middle of a storm, or in the once-in-a-blue-moon moment that you actually have heavy snow and ice in Texas. LOL!
Fortunately I have a health insurance for both my dogs, so I don't have to pay the full amount.
like our friends' dog has.
not in the summertime. It is sold in the pie-baking aisle.