So it develops that Ruby’s stealth peeing apparently results from something wrong. Possibly something really wrong. This afternoon the vet found she had blood in her urine.
This is a symptom that raises all sorts of very depressing possibilities.
It could be a urinary tract infection. That would be the most positive choice: it can be treated.
It could be a cancer.
It could be a kidney infection.
It could be a genital abnormality, cancer, or disease.
It could be diabetes.
It could be porphyria.
And on and on and on…
The vet guessed it’s probably a urinary tract infection and sent me home with a large bottle of antibiotics in liquid form. She thought a tumor would be “uncommon.”
But of course, she doesn’t know that “uncommon” is the story of my life.
I suppose if there’s some unholy congenital thing wrong with Ruby-Doo, the breeder will take her back and (maybe) refund my money. If that’s the case, or if the pup dies of one of these many potentially very serious ailments, then…what the hell.
Cassie went batsh!t at 2 a.m. the other morning; I heard it, too: some sort of weird scratching. Decided it was probably a roof rat or raccoon, because none of the outside motion-sensitive lights were on…but then, the ones on the west side, whence she seemed to think the noise emanated, are not working.
I guess if I’m going to stay in this house and I lose this puppy, I should go on over to the German Shepherd Rescue and apply for one of their dogs. They have a couple right now that don’t look too demented, appear to be more or less manageable, and probably aren’t going to start racking up huge vet bills for a few years.
One thing you have to say about a German shepherd: There’s nothing like a nice friendly GerShep to send Mr. Burglar down to the next house.
Hopefully Ruby has something easily treatable. One of my dogs had some urinary problems for about a year after I adopted her. She was already a year old and seemed mostly house-trained, yet she would dribble urine and/or urinate a small amount when she was highly stimulated. We had to put her on a prescription diet for a while because she had these crystals in her urine that irritated the bladder. (And I still recall having to hold her still once as the vet inserted a needle into her bladder guided by ultrasound to get a urine sample. Yikes!) Eventually everything worked out, though, and she got over whatever was causing the abnormality. In her case it was likely stress due to all the adoption/re-homing stuff. Fingers crossed it is something that Ruby will recover from in the coming months.
Some breeds are prone to crystals and stones — turns out corgis are one of those.
The antibiotics seem to be working — although they’re spoiling her appetite and causing her to barf. All of a sudden, this little pup is magically HOUSE-TRAINED! A whole day yesterday with no puddles! And she now goes to the back door and werfs! to get out.
So I guess she’s had this infection or whatever it is all this time, poor little thing. I’m about to bathe her to wash off the residual pee tar, and then we’ll be able to see if the Rx helps with the dribbling, too.
Hope all is okay. 🙁 I’m sure it’s just a UTI, but fingers crossed.
Your friendly retired veterinary technician here again. I won’t say that cancer never happens in young animals (including humans), because it does. But it’s rare. Similarly, in 15 years at a university vet school hospital, I only saw one case of a young dog developing diabetes.
But, there is one genetic abnormality that might be in play. I think the technical term is a “hooded vulva”. Basically, her vulvar area has extra skin, causing a skin fold where urine tends to pool. This leads to pretty chronic UTIs. The cure is surgical: a nip and a tuck. Not a terribly involved surgery, I don’t believe, but you’d want it done by someone who’d done a few. Next time you have her at the vet, asked if her vulvar conformation looks normal.
Finally, I can remember one vet prescribing cranberry capsules for a little Bichon who had chronic UTIs. I think the theory was “Can’t hurt, might help.” This dog eventually ended up on a weanie dose of antibiotics every night at bedtime. Here the intent is to make sure the urine that accumulates in her bladder overnight doesn’t grow any bacteria. I saw this dog for regular urine check appointments, and she never again, at least while I was still working, had a bladder infection.
So…free advice, or at least info. Possibly worth what you’re paying for it. (But I worked almost exclusively with the internal medicine vets, and learned a few things over the years!)
Also, she may not be able to tolerate the antibiotic if she’s throwing it up. Tell the vet and they can try something else.
She didn’t throw up much — maybe a teaspoon’s worth, and she ate a substantial amount this morning. But only after she was induced to believe she was getting the same thing Cassie eats by my dumping her food out of her bowl onto one of Cassie’s flat plates. Dogs are…uhm….easy to trick, at least the first time around. 😀
At the Corgi board I see a number of folks mention cranberry in one form or another. Trouble with grocery-store cranberry juice is it’s full of sugar. In pill form, though…yeah: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
As I was writing the comment above “oohhhh she’s so much better she’s GOING OUTSIDE,” she deposited another puddle on the floor. So, it looks like a miracle cure is not in place yet. Peed twice in less than an hour…surely that can’t be normal?
Just something that occurred to me with all this mention of cranberries…couldn’t she just eat cranberries in her food? I think they’re available frozen year ’round. But I seem to recall that cranberry for bladder infections is being questioned these days, too…ah well. Give her some time on the medications and see what happens.
I also have heard that the cranberry thing is woo-woo. However, it it doesn’t harm her, it probly doesn’t matter if it doesn’t help her: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Cranberries are VERY bitter. They’re high in vitamin C, which probably wouldn’t hurt a dog. Questionable whether she’d eat it, though.
I really like German Shepards. They have entertaining personalities and do provide an extra element of security. I hope that your doggy has something simple and treatable!
Once it was so. The breed has been pretty much ruined by poor breeding practices, and the animals now can be unpredictable, dangerous, and difficult to handle. Health problems are so prevalent as to be essentially inescapable, and they boggle the mind…to say nothing of draining the bank account.
Under the best of circumstances, a GerShep is a high-drive dog that needs a handler who is physically and mentally strong. I’m pushing 70 and no longer have the physical strength for a dog with that much energy and drive. That’s why I decided to move to the corgi: it has the character of a herding dog but the breed has not been quite so corrupted by popularity.
Yet.