Water Intoxication Can Kill Your Dog

SUMMARY: Some reading for every dog owner.

After Kinetic's death this week--second young dog in our club over the past few years to die from water toxicity--it's good to be reminded of the dangers of water:

• Water Intoxication: Too Much of a Good Thing
• Water Toxicity or Hyponatremia in Dogs = Water playtime can be deadly!

And, incidentally, too much water can make humans very sick, too.

• An agility judge's story part 1: Heat stroke?
• Part 2: Probably water intoxication

Don't Feed Your Dog These Things

SUMMARY: My-word-less Wednesday.

Using someone else's words. From http://dogingtonpost.com/thanksgiving-day-foods-that-can-kill-your-dog/.

To Test Or Not To Test, That is The Question

SUMMARY: Paranoid about dog health. And I guess no course design clinic, either.

Agility is all about money. (When it's not all about the clothing or all about the Qs or all about the food or maybe even all about having fun.) We're FINALLY having a USDAA course-design clinic and judging test this month in our area; tried for it several years back and couldn't get enough people. I'd really like to go. At $295 for the clinic and $65 for the judging test afterwards? Yikes. That's nuts. But I'd still like to go.

Yet another friend's agility dog just died from hemangiosarcoma, which is what took Remington. Seems to appear in the 8-12 year range, and some friends are doing one-time midlife ultrasounds on their dogs to check for tumors. I've been thinking about Tika's on-again, off-again discomfort, and likening it to Remington's on-again, off-again discomfort and his sometimes-superdog and sometimes-not-interested approach to agility. In retrospect, determined that a lot of that, at least in his last year or two, was probably due to the tumor. Soooooooooocoooullld it be the same thing for Tika?

I ran out of Rimadyl, Tika's still not 100% today, so when I called the vet's office for a refill, I posed the question. Turned out that she's overdue for her bortadella shot and way overdue for a heartworm blood test, so I made an appointment for this afternoon and in we went.

Forgot to give Tika her sedative before going in--Human mom fail!--poor doggie shook like a leaf, and you should've heard her screech when the vet took her temp. But we got through it--I accidentally got her head inside my fleece while holding her for that torture and it seemed to calm her more than just holding onto her.

He also suggested that, since I'm using the rimadyl more, we should consider doing a full blood-work panel now and possibly more often in the future to check her liver and kidney function and other vital signs.

Turns out that ultrasound for the full torso cavity (spleen, heart, and lungs being the most crucial points for possible hemangiosarcoma) could run around $1000, and he says it's just like the full-body scanning for humans that some places (for-profit scanning centers) are pushing: Odds of them finding something real are extremely small, and more often than not they find something that they really then have to suggest that you get further testing done on, and the odds are extremely high that that ends up being nothing significant.

He said, if I had that kind of money to throw around regularly without noticing it in my budget, sure, I could do that every year or every 6 months or however often I wanted it, and it might catch something before it got serious. Or--not. When just randomly scanning for something, the beginnings of tumors are small enough that they're not likely to be identified. If I do just one scan, it could be, say, very different from what it would be 3 months down the road because the evidence isn't yet large enough to be detected. No way to know one way or the other.

And really, he says, there's no "epidemic" of hemangiosarcoma; of course like anything else by statistical laws it's never perfectly distributed among the entire dog population, so making assumptions based on a small group isn't really going to give useful data in most cases.

I know all that.

So I'm pretty much talked out of doing the ultrasounds of all her major organs.

The total bill--bloodwork, bortadella shot, rimadyl (double prescription this time because it's cheaper each in larger quantities), consultation and physical check-up--nearly $400. And i don't think my vet is particularly expensive.

But that bill has pretty much also talked me out of signing up for the course-building clinic. Ah, well, given a choice between that and my merle girl's health, guess you know which I'll pick.

Ready for the Weekend

SUMMARY: Tidbits.

Thanks to folks who comment on my cry of horror about the slice halfway off Tika's dorsal pad. Tuesday I got up the gumption to see whether I could clip it off without hurting her and it wasn't too hard to do. (Used toenail clippers!) It looked fine then and it hasn't bothered her at all. Yay!

I've set up a few things in the yard this week to work on a very little bit. Did some very tough weave cross-behinds; Tika got them all but Boost took a little work. (Knew that because she spun out of them in Pairs last weekend when I tried one.)

Did just some running full out in circles using jumps and tunnels. A little tiny bit of dogwalk contact work. Some sending out to jumps. Some simple gambles. Now, we'll see.

Left MUTT MVR's side door open, and the zipper bag containing the trial dogfood unzipped. This afternoon when I went out there, discovered the gallon ziplock bag from the dogfood bag empty with a large hole torn in it. Someone got a way large food supplement today. Boost didn't want to take the Guard the House Goodie when I left, but that could've been stuffed belly or just that she didn't want me to go. Found a pile of tossed-up not-digested dogfood in the back yard when I went out. Seems to me that Boost was much slower than normal eating her dinner this evening. But don't know, probably never will know, and everyone should be fine by Saturday morning.

Then it's up at 5:00 a.m., drive through the beautiful sunrise countryside with the shreds of tule fog over the fields and off to Prunedale once again with friends and beasts.

*#&@%! and Other Choice Words

SUMMARY: Not now, Tika, no injuries!

This morning, warming the dogs up out in the extra soccer field, I thought I saw Tika limping after chasing Boost down the field. She stopped to sniff at a gopher, and I watched her carefully, and saw nothing else. Wouldn't that just suck, with 3 weekends in row of agility and nothing for 2 more months, and her doing so well, for her to come up injured halfway through the 2nd weekend?

I looked at her feet just in case she'd picked up a burr or a foxtail or something, but nothing.

Before coming home from the trial, running the dogs on the lawn with a friend, I commented that Tika didn't seem to be as fast today in competition as last weekend and maybe the novelty had worn off (no competition for over 2 months, almost no agility classes, then 4 whole days of agility! Wahoo! But now, been there, done that).

This evening, i realized she was lying on her bed, licking at her ankle area. Upon closer examination, I see that she has sliced off a penny-sized flap of the carpal pad on her right front foot. But not cleanly off; it's like a flap.

It's not bleeding, doesn't seem particularly sensitive to the touch, doesn't look dirty or jagged.

I've slathered it with neosporin and put vet wrap around it--which I suspect she's now off in a corner carefully removing--and now I have to decide whether I want to spend a chunk of $ and a couple of hours to have the vet look at it in the next day or two. I don't think I want to try to snip off that flap of skin on my own; I'm afraid it's still "live."

And I don't know whether that means she shouldn't be running next weekend.

This sucks.

Killing Your Dog in an Auto Accident

SUMMARY: (Repost from my Facebook page) Have I mentioned why you should find a good system for securing your dog in your car?

Bay Teamer friend Holly Newman evaluated some dog seatbelt harnesses and gave good feedback here.

Now there's a german study, with photos, of what happens to dogs and humans in front-impact accidents given various means of restraint. As in: dogs seriously injured or killed, in the process seriously injuring the driver or passenger. Interesting to note that their chosen harness restraint fails in one of the ways that Holly suggests; would be interesting to know how the one she suggests for big dogs (which I purchased and use occasionally when I can't use crates)) would hold up in the same situation.

Dowload the study's PDF from this page at wachusett.pssweb.net to read it and view the photos (they used dummies so no gore); it's not very long but it's very scary. (Or you can google "test report securing pets in cars" and they usually have a "quick view" that lets you see it in HTML right in your browser, like this.

My dog's crates currently are aligned front to back, at the back of MUTT MVR. It's very convenient for me and they fit well, but I've known for a long time that that's not optimally safe. It was confirmed when i was rear-ended a year ago just after a stop sign (so fairly low speed) and the rear door was jammed shut. Fortunately the dogs weren't in the car at the time, so I didn't have to try to extricate the crates from inside the van.

I'm now going to have to figure out how to arrange them transversely (perpendicular to car's length) behind the front seats instead, for maximum security.

Morning Update on Tika and Her Foot and Vet Bills

SUMMARY: Not broken, but sore. Budget a little broken, though.

The vet took 3 x-rays to be sure of what he was seeing but charged me only for the two he said he'd take. He sees nothing broken or chipped, so it's soft tissue of some sort, but without an MRI to determine whether anything is ripped to shreds, we treat it with rest and antiinflammatories and see what happens.

Vet suggested wrapping it in a little padding to give it a bit of support and protection, but said that if the padding gets wet at all, I need to take it off immediately because damp wrappings can cause other problems very quickly.

I put the still-sedated-looking but happy-to-see-me Tika into MUTT MVR just after 5:30, drove up to Redwood City for our Silvia Trkman tricks seminar, took her out to potty in their little gravel potty area around 7:30, and she found the only puddle in the place and put her foot right into it.

So the wrap comes off and instead I'm going to use one of our little hiking booties.

Vet said no food last night until 8 or 8:30, so at 8 I took her out of her crate and quickly taught her the first trick for the seminar. (We're auditing only, so we hid in the back of the room while the participants did their thing.) Despite her eyes still looking like she's halfway in another universe, she had no problem at all responding to click-and-treat shaping. (I used "yes!" as my click.) Then I took Boost out and got most of the way through teaching her the trick, too. I love "operant" dogs! (Dogs who know they're supposed to do something and keep trying until they get a response.) And I love knowing that I've got a pretty good eye for what to look for and how small the pieces of progress sometimes are in order to quickly put together a successful whole. (If you try to use too big chunks, it takes longer!)

I digress.

Tika also had her anal glands expressed; one was very full and one only partly. But with 3 infections already in her history, I wanted them checked while she was there.

Home at 10:30, she was happy about having half a dinner although still looking weirded, then went straight to bed without wanting to go outside.

This morning, still looks a bit sedated to me, which worries me a bit. She has shown no interest in coming downstairs, even for the morning treats ritual. ...Well, she did get off my bed and come to the top of the stairs to look down at me. Then after a couple of tossed treats, right back to bed. It's now 9 a.m. and still no interest in coming downstairs.

Vet bill--compare and contrast (to your own expenses or whatever you'd like)--my vet rates in a local consumer rating group as "good at keeping costs down."

Exam/consult: $57 (My vet will give me detailed info about everything and talk to me as long as it takes; I never feel rushed or pressured. It's well worth the cost.)
Heartguard, 6 months  for 2 dogs: $72
Rimadyl, 20 tablets (40 doses): $44.50
Half a day hospitalization: $28
Technician/nursing for half a day: $35
Two foot x-rays: $184
X-ray interpretation: $30
Sedative: $59.50
Bandage/padding left paw: $13.50
Surgical pack/suppplies: $8.50 (Hmm, not sure how that's different)
Express anal glands $28.50
Toxic waste/environmental fee $5

Easy Come, Easy $180 Go

SUMMARY: Boost's toenail = vet visit.

Boost ran fine in class last night with vet wrap around her toenail, but when I unwrapped it, it was bleeding again. Wrapped it for play this morning, and again it was bleeding.

I looked more closely at it. The broken part that I didn't want to cut off because it's below the skin line is basically pinching the quick and continuing to injure it. So--off to the vet we go.

Vet won't cut into the skin without sedating the dog. I guess that makes sense, but it's very expensive: sedation and 3 hours under observation afterward. Plus they want her on antibiotics because the injured skin will be making contact with the ground. He said she will be fine for agility in the morning, but not this afternoon. So no bar-knocking drills today, either.

She's at the vet now. I picked a vet closer to home because today is very busy with work and packing for the weekend, and I didn't want to drive the half hour to our regular vet. I have to go pick her up at 4:00. I cry when I have to leave my dog at the vet, I'm such a wimp.

I'm a bit weepy, too, when I have to spend $180 for one broken toenail.

At least it's not raining.

Do Those Dewclaws That You Do So Well

SUMMARY: Poor Booster's little toeie has an owie.

Dinnertime last night, and Boost is lying in the corner lick lick licking her paw. I check it out: Dew claw toenail is broken in half at the quick and it's bleed bleed bleeding. Gotta hurt, too.

I don't trim them often enough, and it was pretty long, so I blame myself for this one. Thing is, Tika's dew claws (and back in the day, Amber's and Sheba's) kept themselves trimmed down--proof positive that some dogs indeed get traction from their dewclaws when running. Jake's *never* wore down at all; Boost's wear down a bit but not enough. So with one dog who doesn't need it at all and one dog who needs it seldom, I just forget.

I was able to trim off most of the broken part with no sign of pain on her part. A little styptic power to stop the bleeding, a nice flesh-colored bandaid (couldn't find any merle-colored bandaids) to cover it for a little while (chyeah, that stayed on for hours--not!), and some constant reminding to leave it alone.

By bedtime the bandaid was lonnnng gone and she was leaving it alone. Just trying to decide whether I want to wrap it in a bit of that mesh tape when she's outside running the next couple of days. In class tonight. And how about at the trial this weekend? Since I know that she uses them a bit, since they wear down a bit--

argh, decisions! [Gnaws at own nails--]

Are We Ready Yet?

SUMMARY: Conditioning hikes...wellllll... plus Tika's butt and agility training...wellll...and about that camera.

I am swamped this week. THREE projects for work simultaneously. I can handle it, really I can--

But no energy to call the insurance company and ask to rescind my claim. NEXT week maybe.

Camera: It occurred to me that I must be able to RENT one of the cameras that I'm thinking of buying. Looked online, sho nuff, lots of places. So I reserved a camera (plus battery plus memory card--extra fees of course) and hopefully can pick it up Friday before heading for Yosemite. I have a borrowed lens that'll fit--18 to 200mm, which isn't quite as nice as a 300, but I didn't want the additional rental fee--not surprisingly, most lenses cost more to rent than the camera body.

So what kind of conditioning are we up to this week for the grueling 3000-plus-foot trek up to Glacier Point on Saturday--T minus 3 days and counting? Monday, a mile and a half on the flat with the beasts. Typical brisk walk. Yesterday, a mile and a quarter on the flat with the beasts. Another typical brisk walk. PLUS i went up and down my 3/4 story stairs 25 times! I added that up--that's about 150 feet elevation gain! omG I'm nowhere close to 3000 feet.

This evening planning on joining the sierra club group for a 5 mile, 500 feet brisk hike from Skyline Ridge to Russian Ridge (love those names). Then, to make up the additional 2500 feet of conditioning, I'll come home and climb up and down my stairs 416 times.

Or not.

Tika's anal gland is looking somewhat better. Monday she definitely drooped; yesterday her usual perky over-the-top self returned in full force. We're using hot damp compress plus antibiotic ointment twice a day. It's still bleeding a bit but not nearly as badly. I'm almost out of ointment, crud. Plus I doubt the renter's going to want to do that on Saturday.

And we're a week and a half from the SMART USDAA warm-up for the Western Regionals the following weekend, and what have we been working on? Noooooothing! Plus missed last week's class; it was rescheduled for earlier in the day because of World Team practice, and I couldn't make it. NEXT week I'll get serious again.

I mean, we do do a few drills every day, but just kind of general things: A little contact work, a little weave pole work, a little running and jumping. And now--on to Projects A, S, and P!

Things are looking up. Or, at least, I am.

World Good. Facebook Good.

SUMMARY: Tika gets a vet appointment through facebook.

Facebook is interesting. It gets a lot of flack for the banal things that people post. But, for the most part, the people I know post interesting things. And I find out stuff that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Like, a distant friend's mother-in-law died. Like, another distant friend just had an operation. Like, who among my facebook friends are at the AKC nationals this week. Who got a new puppy. Who lost a dog. Who's working on running contacts.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I posted this in my status:

Tika is in so much pain (tbd what exactly--arthritis?) that Ellen has scratched both Tika and Boost (technically still in rehab) from the whole 4 days of Haute TRACS. [sags despondently]

I got plenty of sympathetic comments. One person asked when she'd be seeing the vet. I replied:

Scheduled vet for Monday. Regular vet gone this week, so only one vet in office, already overbooked, said I could come sit and wait however long it took until a few minutes opened up and I decided it's not that much of an emergency. I hope.

Another of my facebook friends just happens to have the same vet that we do. And she just happened to have an appointment for this afternoon. And she just happened to decide that she could wait until next week and offered the spot to us. And I accepted with pleasure.

This would never have happened without facebook.

Tika is feeling above average today; running around like normal, just sometimes forgets and does something forceful or twisty with her front parts and yelps. Not completely debilitated like she was Wednesday. Hopefully we can pinpoint where the problem is and then decide where to go from there.

I'm floored and grateful for the gift of a vet appointment 3 days earlier. It doesn't cost her anything except time to set up the changed appointments, but it feels wonderful and it feels like a huge gift. I know how hard it is sometimes to get appointments at times that are convenient. All is right with the world.

Choices Made

SUMMARY: I make some progress with dogs but not much.

I went ahead and moved Tika down to 20" for this coming weekend's CPE trial. Oh, well, so we'll be competing against more excellent dogs. That's what competition's all about, and maybe she'll jump more comfortably. She knocked only that one bar a week ago all weekend, but she sure wasn't comfortable landing.

I'm moving Tika gradually to Performance (jumping 22") instead of CHampionship (26") in USDAA. I think. I went ahead and left Tika in the two championship USDAA DAM teams for April and June (so far)--which means she's still jumping 26"--and have left her in championship Steeplechase and Grand Prix so far--because she still needs ONE tournament of any kind for her Platinum Tournament Master. And 26" in Standard and Jumpers, because she needs just a few more of those for her ADCH-Silver. But I'm conceding to her repeating soreness and moving her down to 22" in other classes. We'll see whether it makes a difference.

I'm supposed to be giving Boost a complete rest from intense running for 2 weeks per physical therapist, just giving her excellent, long hikes over varied terrain. Well, after 2 days of 2-mile walks over level sidewalks, I decided that I'm just too busy to go driving for an hour to get to someplace where I can let the dogs off leash to hike, and I'm just not going to do it. I have to drive 15 minutes just to get someplace with uphills and downhills, and I'm just not going to do it, even though I could use it, too.

I worked on lots of tug of war, set up a cart with a platform so she could put her front feet on it and push it around with her rear legs (both dogs, actually, for everything), one exercise from the PT, and practiced with their rear legs up on a step and streeeeetchhhhing them out (also from PT), and working on sitting up. Tricks.

And by Saturday evening Boost was going nuts. Pulling all the toys out of the toy box and chewing on that. Poking at the space heater because she knows it gets my attention (dammit!). Throwing her bedding around. Standing in the yard and barking at phantom ideas. In short--that dog needs more exercise that I can give her around here without running her (dammit!). Good thing she's not *seriously* injured. We'd both go insane.

So I went back to running her in the yard. Mostly avoiding agility equipment except using a 4" bar to practice handling maneuvers, and a straight tunnel to try to avoid banking off the sides.

She's also on prescription anti-inflamatories for 3 weeks to see whether it makes a difference in her movements. I avoided paying another $100 at the vet's for supplements that I don't even believe will do anything based on recent research.

So many decisions to make, one after another. And so many of them affecting my dogs' lives and health.

More About Boost

SUMMARY: Orthopedist appointment in 3 weeks; pelvis comments.

I've set up an appointment for x-rays and exam with an orthopedist for Boost in 3 weeks--first appointment that's available. It's about a 90 minute drive one way. I am so not looking forward to 3 hours of the dogs in the car, resting and storing up energy, while I'm tiring myself out, driving. But I sure think it'll be worth it.

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention that the vet/masseuse also commented that Boost's pelvis is a little flat and a little short. She said that what this means is that she might be less "scopey"--the scope of what she can quickly and easily adjust to might be less than dogs with a differently shaped pelvis. It's not an insurmountable issue. Just might take more or different training. Which was an interesting observation.

Who ever thought, back in 1995 when I started going to class for something to do with my dog one night a week, that I'd ever think about anything like this?

A Break for Boost

SUMMARY: Taking Boost out of agility for a while.

I've commented here about Boost's bar knocking, about my lack of success with bar-knocking drills (which actually work well with Tika), and about some of the spectacular all bars down, all the time runs in class lately.

The next step is to evaluate Boost's physical status. Yesterday, I took her up to Power Paws for a massage and evaluation with a well-regarded DVM/masseuse who specializes in performance dogs (got tired of dealing with "overweight, out of shape pet dogs and their owners") and who participates in agility herself. Boost took a while to relax (one reason I don't do a lot of stretching and rubbing with her--she's not much into being touched, although she puts up with it, and never relaxes much), but by the end of the session her body just flowed out onto the table, eyes half closed. She still resisted some things just from being that kind of dog, but mostly she got into it--as most dogs do. Jake and Tika always liked getting worked on.

The evaluation--and this is in my words: Boost reacted in pain to some work on her right rear leg. Hard to tell exactly where, but DVM thinks lower back or pelvis. Says that Boost's legs are all spectacularly muscled, which would most likely eliminate dysplasia. But her lower back and abdomen need work to develop the muscles there. (Just like us humans with back issues! She and I now both need to start doing crunches!)

The suggestion was to not do any agility with Boost for a while, to continue evaluation of what the problem might be, to give her body time to heal, and to work on developing those other muscles. Got the thumbs up to keep doing what I've been doing, and even more of it--the exercise ball, backing up the stairs, long hikes and running, just not jumping and like that.

So I'm going to get her x-rayed at a well-regarded dog sports vet if I can get an appointment any time soon. Then we'll see from there what more to do. Like: To work on: Teach her to sit up (some people have taken to calling it "sit pretty"--what was traditionally called "beg") and even to do squats. I've seen videos of dogs doing it; if they can stand on their hind legs, and if they can "sit pretty," then it just takes some additional work to get them to go from one to the other. Maybe it'll motivate me to do more like that, too.

So I've scratched Boost from the next 2 CPE trials in March, although I've left Tika in (since I've promised to be the chief score table czar). Next USDAA is the big four-day Haute Tracs extravaganza in 2 months. Would be too bad to miss that with Boost. But--well--we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm also going to take at least one six-week session off from class; Boost can't participate, Tika and I can always use practice but it won't hurt us badly to miss it; and I'll be needing the time and money for Boost's work.

The interesting thing was my first reaction to the suggestion to stop agility with Boost for a while: A sense of relief. Like, maybe this is a fixable issue and if some time off is mostly what it takes, hallelujah! Like, someone is giving me permission to not do agility. Isn't that funny, what goes through one's mind?

It'll be tough, being at a trial and not being able to run Boost. I'll try to still take her out and play with her just the same. Have to remember to do that and not start putting it off because it's "not important" (like doing a run you've paid for).

After the massage, we went for a drizzly walk around parts of Power Paws' open fields.

Just about the only shot of Tika, because she always wants to be out at the farthest distance, exploring:

Both dogs seemed intent on grazing, since the sheep were in a different field and not doing the job. With San Jose spread out below and vanishing into the glaring mists of that steady, steady drizzle.

We walked up over the rise where the big agility field is and down the other side. There's Tika, as far away as she can get (to the right of the tree near center--really, she's there!).

It's About Time! Saving Purebred Dogs

SUMMARY: British Kennel Club makes it unacceptable to breed dogs whose features make them unhealthy.

The RSPCA (British version of ASPCA) pulled out of Crufts (the major purebred dog show) last year over concerns about the bad effects that breeding for exaggerated appearances have done to dogs. The Kennel Club (British equivalent of AKC, but older, possibly first in the world) has since revised its standards somewhat, among other things now disallowing incestuous breedings to be registered. Mixed reviews, not surprisingly. Read the article.

North America (and AKC) is already far behind Europe, where most laws now prohibit docking of tails and cropping of ears. We'll undoubtedly be way behind in this, too.

Recidivism

SUMMARY: Dang Boost at night.

What, is Boost reading my blog now? She made me get up at 1:00 this morning to let her out.

The Dog In The Night Party Umpty-Ump

SUMMARY: Boost's nights seem to be back to normal.

In the last month, Boost has asked to go out during the night only twice: Once at Scottsdale, which was my worst night hacking and snorting with the miserable cold, which could've just woken her up thoroughly, and once more on Nov 11. But otherwise, she's sleeping through the night.

Was it the 2nd round of tougher antibiotics for a longer period? Was it putting her in her crate after she came back in after insisting on going out? Don't know, but something worked, thank goodness.

For previous posts on the topic, click the Housebreaking label. (At least...it should bring up 4 other posts...)

No Dog In The Night (and Other Gratitudes)

SUMMARY: Boost sleeps through the night, and otherwise also a good week.

I hit Boost's not-sleeping-through-the-night issue with a two-pronged attack: shock and awe... (No, wait, that was a different campaign.) ...really, Plan A: 10 days of antibiotics plus Plan B: every time she gets me up, she has to sleep in her crate when we return to bed.

This isn't a tremendous hardship, as she slept there every night for her first year here, and she still sometimes sleeps there voluntarily when maybe Tika or I toss and turn too much.

Before Plan A and Plan B, she got me up 10 out of 25 nights (after I started tracking). That included one stretch of 7 nights where she *never* woke me up, giving me false hope, but NOOooo, then 5 out of the next 10 up.

So we get to Plan A and B. After the first full day of antibiotics, she let me sleep. Then ditto for the next 3 nights. Wow, thought I, it *was* some insidious infection. But NOOoooo again, 4 out of the next 6 nights she got me up. Each time, I zipped her into the crate afterwards. She grumbled some and hit on the door a bit (it's one of those lightweight pop-up nylon crates), but I told her to knock it off and she settled in each time.

I also started Plan C: When *I* was up in the night on my own for any reason (last night: something banging around on the deck. Maybe the wind.), I did NOT let her out just because she asked. She pestered me a bit at first but since then, just accepts it. Because I think that's what started the problem--a bout of insomnia, where I just let her out every night in the middle of the night when I was up and she asked.

So then...looking promising...after the last day of antibiotics, we went 6 nights with no out--ah, ha! it WAS an infection?!-- but wait: then one night of out plus crate, two nights off, one night of out plus crate, and now 5 more nights off. So only two nights of the last 15 has she gotten me up. I can only hope. It's still a little unclear whether it was an infection or behavioral, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

Boost resting up from a hard night of sleeping through. Uzza wuzza cute widdle feeties all gathered up!


I am also grateful that I can now comfortably wear all those pairs of jeans that I haven't been able to wear since October. Thank you, Weight Watchers (no meetings this time, but using their strategies).

I am also grateful that I saved $200 on my auto/house/umbrella insurance yesterday. Thank you, Geico. (Used to have Geico auto insurance for years and loved them, but 7 years ago they couldn't insure my house and now they can. Go figure.)

I am grateful that, on very short notice and at essentially the last minute, I have found excellent DAM teams for both dogs for USDAA Nationals. Thank you, agility friends!

Let's hope that things keep looking up.

The Dog in the Night Follow-Up

SUMMARY: Boost is fine probably.

The vet found nothing wrong with Boost even after doing a culture of her urine and testing for a few other things. So we're going back to the assumption that it's probably behavioral, because everything else that could be medical is both rare and harder to diagnose.

However, he did say that certain bacterial infections won't show up in the culture especially if they're mild, so let's try 10 days of antibiotics anyway and see whether it helps because sometimes it does. I'm leery of antibiotics just on general principles, but he felt from our long discussion that I had asked the right questions and tried the right things and said that, if it were his dog, he'd do it. So, OK, we're doing it.

I picked up the pills right before leaving town midday Friday and just got back. The dogsitter (Renter) said that she didn't wake him up at night and he saw no signs of puddles in the morning. Of course, I haven't even been up to my bedroom yet, so who knows--

But I'm back on thinking we'll simultaneously treat it as behavioral. Starting with, if she gets me up, she goes into her crate instead of on the bed when we come back in.

The Dog In The Night

SUMMARY: Boost and her potty habits. Or what.

I am exhausted. Boost has gotten worse about not sleeping through the night. Last time I bemoaned this, someone suggested maybe she had a bladder or other urinary-tract infection, but no, I was sure it was just some sort of training that she had figured out was being trained when in fact it wasn't being trained, it was all a misunderstanding.

So I determinedly walked her out back before bedtime and insisted on a good pee and then we'd go to bed. And it got a little better sometimes, and then finally we had a good solid run of a whole week, 7 days, with no asking to go out after bedtime. Then we backslid for a few days, then we had maybe 5 days with no going out, and then the last couple of weeks it's back to almost every night.

What still doesn't have me convinced that it's a UTI is that she sometimes goes ALL DANG DAY at an agility trial without wanting to pee, so if it were a real problem, wouldn't it affect her all the time? And then the usual pattern is: pee and go to bed, then maybe within an hour, ask to go out again (what, is she holding it back?) then maybe or maybe not in another 1-2 hours ask to go out again but almost never after 1 or 2 in the morning. Then she's fine until whenever I wake up for real, which sometimes these days isn't until 9 because I'm so wiped out from being woken up.

Anyway, OK, now i'm going out of town for 2 nights without the dogs and realizing that I have to explain this to my renter, who's watching the dogs for me. I did not have to explain this back in May when I went to Arizona for a week. So clearly it has gotten worse, not better.

So this morning I went out with her, wearing rubber gloves (me, not Boost), and shoved a little baby-food jar into the appropriate location to gather a sample. Now we have a vet's appointment for tomorrow morning. The receptionist said, oh, no, they'll want to get their own sample. I seem to remember from a past dog, ages ago, where the vet said it's sometimes hard to get their own sample so if I could get one, that would be helpful. But that was then and this is now. And maybe I don't remember that well. So should I dump the sample? Nah, guess I'll hold on to it for a day and let it brew. Or maybe try again tomorrow morning just in case.

Meanwhile, Boost enjoys a little boxing. I spend money on dog toys why?