Mind Your Pees. And Pee Cues.

SUMMARY: Pee wars.

Oooooohhhhhh noooooo there seem to be Pee Wars going on in my house.

All of a sudden every time I turn around in the house someone is raising his leg or someone's leg is already down and there's a puddle/spray or I'm finding a place where someone's leg has been raised. I mean, almost literally.  Five times in the previous 2 days!  And several times in the last week or so.

Which means time with rags and/or paper towels, my small carpet cleaner, and Nature's Miracle--over and over and over and over. Really?

What's with this?!?!?! Guess I'm going to have to go back to puppy handling with BOTH supposedly adult supposedly house trained dogs: Take them outside when they wake up. After they've been playing. After they've eaten. And so on. What a pain in the butt. I don't remember this ever happening with Jake and Remington!

This morning I made an effort to go outside with the dogs right after any of those occasions. Luke peed exactly once that I could see, first thing in the morning after he'd been outside for about 5 minutes.

I walked him around the yard about 3 other times for 10 minutes at a time, and nuthin'. Even with Chip wandering around cooperatively peeing on things in front of us to give Luke a hint.  Since they do have free access to the yard, and he has been out on his own, I'm hoping that this means this isn't going to happen inside today.

Several friends suggested belly bands.  Like these: Male Wrap/Dog Belly Band. Will have to give them a try.

CPE PEE

SUMMARY: It finally happened.

Over 17 years of agility competition. Four dogs. 280 trials. Or, as they say in industry, 4600 runs with no accidents.

Had one or two close calls. Like, just last weekend, for instance. I walked Tika into the ring for a run still on leash, but she had her nose to the ground instead of paying attention to getting to our stop-down-stay position. So I looped her around me to approach the start line again, which caused her to swing momentarily outside the ring rope--where she squatted and peed. Horrors! A dog who eliminates in the ring is--well--eliminated from that round, and there go the multiple dollars that you paid for the privilege of peeing in the ring. But-- I think because she was technically outside the ring rope--it wasn't called and we went ahead and ran.

It was a close call, and I have always prided myself on being aware of my dogs' needs and bodily schedules and making sure that they get plenty of potty time during the day. And Tika, really, has always had a bladder of iron. She virtually never needs to go out in the middle of the night unless something is wrong. She can go 12 hours easily from night until the next morning and then merely saunters out casually to take a leak. Even these days, nope, she doesn't want to go out before bedtime and doesn't bother going out again in the morning until after Boost has done her run and then fetched the newspaper. Even now, even at 12 and a half years old.

Today, luck or whatever ran out. Pottied the dogs before leaving home. Pottied them an hour later at the site after I'd set up our gear. Took Tika out an hour after that, and had no sooner stepped a foot inside the ring when she squatted and peed. And just like that, one of her only 2 runs all day was done. I had hoped that it was still close enough to the gate that it didn't count, but nope, judge shook her head and waved us off. Crap crap crap!

Well, OK, no actual crap, thank goodness. But it did piss me off a bit, so to speak. Not sure who to be mad at, though, really, except The Fates. I had done my due diligence in pottying her twice in the last 2 hours. Judge was just following the rules. Tika obviously couldn't help it.

It does make me wonder what's going on with Tika's internals.

But mostly, it makes me so very sad to break such a long-standing record.

Monday Morning Blues

SUMMARY: Just one of those mornings.

Also sing today's song to the tune of Darling Clementine, because I created my own earworm yesterday and it won't go away.

Oh my darling
grown-up doggie
you're no longer just a pup
Yet you peed
upon my carpet.
In what barn did you grow up?

When I got up this morning and put my feet on the floor, yup, a wet spot. Don't know who did it or when or why, and no one's talkin'. I don't remember anyone being restless or trying to get my attention during the night, and I'm usually (sometimes too much) aware of their movements and when they thud-jump off the bed. No recollection at all.

Dang.

Soooo I cleaned as best I could with my Bissell Spot Lifter using just water, then applied generous doses of Nature's Miracle.  Spot Lifter and Nature's Miracle--two products that a dog owner with carpets really can't live without! Wish I'd known about them 30 years ago instead of only 10.

But the motor on the Spot Lifter is going south. I ran it down completely several times and then recharged, but it didn't help.  This is my second one; the first one  just wouldn't run one day. So looks to me like their lifespan is around 5 years. But it's so amazingly useful in my life that I'll keep shelling out the $50 every 5 years. Heck, that's not much more than entering Grand Prix and Steeplechase at any one USDAA trial.

And now, for a gratuitous photo because I can.

Thank Goodness For Medicine

SUMMARY: Boost: Bladder infection.

Yes, Boost has a bladder infection, and a pretty good one, too. I feel better about the accidents that she had--it wasn't me or her screwing up, it was her infection.

SOOOOO my fourth 30-minute-one-way drive to the vet and back in 6 days, this time to pick up the antibiotics. And say goodbye to another $59.

Now I'm wondering...Tika's been doing a lot of licking lately in that same, er, area, and sometimes a little difficulty peeing. Could *she* have an infection, too? Do I want to spend another $200 to find out? Ack.

I may moan about the costs, but in truth I thank goodness that we have tests to figure out what's wrong and the means to treat it.

The Scary Vet Adventure

SUMMARY: In which we are all traumatized.

September was a rough vet month for all of us here at Taj MuttHall.

On Sept 16 and 17, Tika was suddenly in so much pain that she could barely stand up (as described here). We ended up at the vet for problem analysis.

Tika abhors going to the vet. So much so that, normally, I give her a tranquilizer an hour before we leave the house. Even so, she completely over-dramatizes the vet experience. For example, I pull into their parking lot, I pop out quickly, open the tailgate--and Tika is lying in her crate (instead of the usual "Let's go!" pushing to open the door), shaking. Quivering. How does she even know? Are the noises in that area so unique? I can't imagine that she smells much there--the windows aren't open. But who knows how--she knows.

I coax her out, and as we approach the door, she pulls on the leash away from there. In the waiting room, she paces and whines and will not settle, occasionally throwing herself at the door to get out. In the examination room, waiting for the vet to come in, she paces frantically in a clockwise circle around my chair, occasionally throwing herself at the door to get out. You know, those vets stick things where things should never be stuck.  She survives; she's actually very good through the exam, just panting heavily and tense and I have to hold her front end firmly.

I like my vet, but my wallet hates going to the vet, too. I can feel it quivering as we approach the front door.

Tika, as previously reported, decided just before we left for the vet that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her (which the vet confirmed), but I didn't give her a tranq this time because I wanted a better evaluation of her state. So, even for an evaluation that everything is OK, my wallet had things stuck where they should never be stuck--the credit card into the card reader.  $57 for the office visit. $55 for a refill on her Rimadyl for future painful episodes. And the standard $5 for "medical / toxic waste environmental fee". It's printed permanently on their invoices.

Meanwhile, Boost has had some potty issues. A week after and again two weeks after her prednisone stopped, but after she started hydroxyzine (all for her over-the-top scratching), she peed on my bed while lying there. The first time it was right after we went up to bed and she didn't want to go outside before that, while I brushed my teeth. Behavior? Illness? Medication?

So *she* went to the vet last Friday for an exam, and returned again this morning to give a urine sample. We arrived and I opened the tailgate--poor Tika is lying hunched in the back of her crate, quivering. Boost is not fond of the vet, either, but what a difference. The office door was ajar this morning, and she pushed it open to go inside. Her tail starts wagging--maybe it's an "I'm unhappy or worried" type of wagging, and she does tend to snuggle up to me a bit, but SO different from Tika! After the vet examines her, Boost gets off the table and lies down, completely relaxed. SOOOOOO different!

But my wallet still quivers: $57 for the office visit. $40 for "cystocentesis" ("a veterinary procedure where a needle is placed into the urinary bladder through the abdomen of an animal and a sample of urine is removed"), $54 for general urinalysis, $136 (!!) to culture the urine to check for a bladder infection.  And, of course, $5 for  "medical / toxic waste environmental fee".  Holy smackeroons.

Well, we will all soon recover from the trauma, I'm sure. Whoever thinks that owning a dog is cheap entertainment is in for a shock.