Update on Smolt's Bowels, Oleander's Health
Flyfishing Stories by Bob Lawless

My dog, my poor Smolt, seems to get worse by the hour, his bowels rage unabated and he refuses to eat so I took him to the vet for some help. Well, the vet thinks it is his nerves and asked me if Smolt was doing anything that might make a dog get nervous or stressed in any way. I could not think of anything...the dog did lead the life of a fishing dog, but what was stressful about that? True, he got wet once in awhile but he has always been dried off thoroughly, given a small sip of a good whiskey (James Beam), and allowed to sleep whenever he wanted to do so in my fishing vest. His only job is to lick the tears from my cheeks when I cry, and, while that is quite often when I go fishing, it should not be that stressful. The vet said that dogs were good at licking and that it must be something else. I allowed as how I did not catch much and maybe that bugged the dog.
The vet says that that has been a big problem this fall what with the low water and all and that Smolt's condition should improve once the rains begin.
He gave me a rather large syringe to inject Immodium into Smolt's rectum and I have to do this every four hours every day. So if you see a guy wading along in some river with a syringe up a dog's butt, well, that's me.
Oleander, my famous parrot, is doing ok but he continues to whizz away all the time. I have put a rather large bucket of water in his cage so he can keep up with the outflow. I have hooked up a 1/4" tube to the bottom of the cage and then I have exited the other end out the window and from there it drops to the street. I hope no one takes offence at this.
I have been forced to put zip lock bags on the bottom of each animal and when they get full, I just stick them in the back of my vest and empty them at a rest stop. This works well but draws stares from onlookers. I always say, "What? What?" And then they hurry on, avoiding my eyes. What am I? Some sort of leper or something? OK, I don't catch much, but does this make me a bad person? I don't think so.