I feel bad....

So all that puppy peeing drama turned out to be a UTI after all. About a month ago I brought in a urine sample because I KNEW that Belle was peeing too much. When they didn’t find anything, I told myself to be patient and maybe her little bladder was growing….
Well it started getting worse and last week after getting up every 2 hours to let her out at night I decided there HAD to be a problem. So I got the soup ladle out (it is THE BEST way to capture urine as long as it’s right out of the dishwasher and doesn’t have nasties on it to start with! Guess no one will be coming to my house now for chili…..) and captured her urine and drove it to the vet’s office on my way to work. I was all ready to tell them to give me drugs for her NO MATTER WHAT OR I WILL GO ELSEWHERE AND TAKE MY MULTITUDE OF DOGS AND CATS WITH ME ALONG WITH ALL THAT MONEY THAT IS KEEPING YOU IN BUSINESS. When I got to work there was a call from the vet telling me that yes, Belle had an infection. So she had gone a whole month with this thing progressively getting worse and me believing that it was a behavioral issue as they suggested.
Poor Puppy. She was probably in pain and not able to tell us beyond peeing every 15 minutes and soiling her crate every day and night. At least we hadn’t been punishing her for her accidents because we knew there had to be a reason that she couldn’t control it…..
She’s now on Clovomax(?) for 14 days and we have to capture that urine again tomorrow to make sure it’s working. The good news is that she is now staying dry in her crate all night and seems to be on the road to recovery. I just hope she’s not one of those girls who has continuous UTIs.
She and Blue are now on a RAW diet. It was pretty scary for me at first and when I started with Blue - I was cooking everything. But then I started to worry about him not getting enough calcium, so after reading all I could, buying 3 books on the subject and sweating a lot about it, I dove in. Both are doing great on the diet and so far have had chicken parts and turkey necks along with some organ meats. I also give oatmeal and some veggies to supplement. (Andre was a little embarrassed at Martins the day I found Turkey Necks and shouted “Turkey Necks for 39 cents a pound!” I think he wanted to slink out of the store….)Anyway, I still sit with Belle while she eats to make sure she crunches her bones up and she seems to be doing fine with it.
At some point we’ll probably switch all the dogs over to raw, but I think Andre still needs to be convinced. In the meantime, we have switched from Pedigree(!) to Kirklands Chicken and Rice or Lamb and Rice which I’ve read is a pretty good choice as far as kibble goes.