Star, if Pootie has that much of a gas problem, there has to be some Boston in there somewhere! Bostons are famous for their gas, so much so that I'm always surprised that they're not all floating up around the ceiling like helium balloons!
And OMG! I know exactly what you went through during the rubber duckie incident! I went through the same thing with my beloved Ms. Katy a few years ago! I am Katy's third owner. Her breeder intended to use her to have even more puppies. She was taken from her mother and litter mates at a very early age and was raised alone in a pen. As a result, she never learned to socialize with other dogs, never played with other dogs, never had any use for them at all and has to be kept separated from them - her only drawback but it's not her fault. But she is absolutely crazy about people! Katy loves everybody and a stranger is just a friend she hasn't met yet. Katy is pure love wrapped up in a chubby little black and white body! And she's so smart ... just spooky smart! I talk to them all but Katy understands every word I say to her and responds appropriately. And because she's so smart, she gets bored easily so she's always in to things ... she's very good at amusing herself but keeps her owner hopping. She's requires a lot of attention and supervision, like a hyperactive toddler. But to me, her antics are just funny and she's kept me laughing for six years now.
Her original owner bred her at a very early age and she had two puppies that were sold. She was bred again (all before her second birthday) and then somehow she was given (or traded) to my friend, the tech at our vet's office ... not too clear on how that happened. She had two more puppies, one that was stillborn and a second one that died two weeks later. Since Katy was a bit too much for them to keep up with, she was offered to me and I got her the day after her second puppy died. Her back pair of mammary glands were hugely swollen and they never went down, even though she was given medication. They were purple and almost dragged the ground when she walked. Then one day I felt the lumps. I had a dog before that had breast cancer and I knew what it felt like - like a cluster of pencil erasers, firm but not hard. Scared me silly! I took her right to the vet but he wasn't there that morning. Instead, there was this ditzy woman doctor who seemed less like a vet than anyone I've ever seen! They X-rayed Katy and then she showed me the x-rays. She told me that Katy not only had cancer but that it had probably spread all through her chest, as she pointed at a bunch of little white blips on the x-ray. And not only that, she said that some of her organs were pushed out of place, not exactly where they should be ... in other words, she was telling me that my beloved Katy was going to die! And not one ounce of sympathy or compassion. Instead she seemed delighted with herself, wallowing in her own cleverness at figuring all this out! I made an appointment to bring her back in a week for surgery, and it was one of the worst weeks I ever had! I couldn't even look at Katy without crying! I would watch her running through the house playing, with that happy grin on her face, and I was thinking how, in a short time, she would be very sick and in pain and I would be having to make that horrible decision about letting her go! It was awful! I brought her in for her surgery to remove the back pair of mammary glands, thankfully it was her regular trusted vet doing the surgery. I was so scared when I went to pick her up, bracing myself for the bad news, only to find that he had found no trace of cancer! He went ahead and removed the glands as a precaution and because they were such a problem ... but no cancer! That was five years ago and my beloved Ms. Katy is still going strong! But I will never forget what I went through that horrible week thinking that I was going to lose Katy, and what that stupid "vet" had put me through and her attitude. If I were to ever see her out in the street somewhere, I would probably have to run over her with my car ... or at least give her a darned good scare, just like she did me!