The Dog In The Night Part ??

SUMMARY: Another trip to the emergency room.

Friday night I got to bed around 9:15 in anticipation of rising at 4:15 to head to Turlock. Before that, Boost squatted to pee when I took her out, but did nothing, and I figured that she was trying to demonstrate that she really had taken care of business.

But, in the bedroom, she tossed and turned and moved around restlessly and then about 20 minutes later demanded urgently to go out. We went out. She squatted--nothing. Moved elsewhere, squatted, nothing. Repeat for about 5 minutes. Back to bed. Tossing and turning, demanding to be let out, squatting, nothing. Repeat I don't know how many times until 1:30 in the morning. I had not slept a wink, and neither had she, and now I was getting a little worried. Maybe a bladder infection--but we DID use antibiotics (ending 2 weeks ago) and she HAD mostly slept through the night for the last 2 weeks.

Could it be one of those other things that the vet had said were possible but rarer? Bladder stone? Some kind of growth or blockage?

My choices were: (1) Go to the emergency room and spend large sums of money. (2) Blow off saturday at the agility trial and wait to see my regular vet in the morning. (3) Give up my bed, drive to turlock, hope she'd be ok for 2 hours in the van and that I might be able to sleep for a couple of hours there.

Rejected (3)--didn't want to be caught out of town if it was indeed something serious. Rejected (2)--that's a lot of entry fees to blow off, plus I really wanted that one last try at Steeplechase.

So we went to the emergency clinic, which I'm grateful to have only about 2 miles from home.

An hour and a half, 2 x-rays, and $400+ later, we determined that it was probably a bladder infection still/again. They injected antibiotics and gave us a different kind of antibiotic pills to use for the next two weeks.


Returned to bed, and we were both so exhausted that we fell right asleep--for an hour before heading to Turlock. I kept my alarm clock in the van's front seat in case I realized while driving that my alertness was fading and I needed to pull over and sleep, but I felt amazingly good (for 1 hour of sleep) both mentally and physically.

Then I had those two lovely Standard runs with both dogs first thing in the morning. Maybe I should do without sleep more often! KIDDING... by late afternoon at the score table, I found myself staring blankly at scribe sheets, not able to process what I needed to do. I managed only about a 10-minute break sitting quietly with my head back and eyes closed, but it was enough to survive the rest of the day.

I slept VERY well Saturday night until Boost asked to go out at 5:30. Would've liked an additional hour of sleep, but, oh, well. Everything on her end (so to speak) seemed to function just fine all weekend. And she slept through last night at home, too.