Mike’s Doghouse

Mike got neutered today. At 8 mos, it’s the longest we have ever waited to get a dog spayed/neutered. We (and the vet) wanted to wait to see how his bladder was doing. While I won’t bet the farm that Mike is 100% house trained, I do feel his bladder problems are slowing resolving to the point that if he has to go, he has enough time to take himself outside.

Mike wasn’t allowed breakfast this morning. He was in his sleeping crate (which is on the floor on my side of the bed) and was quite irritated. We call him Mr. Squeaky for a reason and boy was he squeaking! He has a nice, deep bark but he still has that high pitched “HEY! You! The one with the thumbs!” kind of noise.

Anyway, I’m going soon to pick him up. We had it done at the vet’s office vs Humane Alliance, a low-cost spay/neuter clinic. The vet wanted to take x-rays of his hips while he was asleep (no official word yet on the hip x-ray results). The cost will be staggering, I’m sure. But Mike is worth it.

We’ve taken almost all of our other critters (an ‘off the top of my head’ count came to 7) to Humane Alliance for spay/neuters. We’ve never had a complication. In visiting their website today, I found their statistics page. Some interesting numbers!

And, no, I am not going to get Mike fitted for neuticles.

Mike’s not been limping since the day after the vet. He sometimes seems to be walking weird, but no limp. We’ve noticed he is growing again, this time starting to fill out in places, like his face. That’s what I like about mutts. Some days they look like one breed, the next day they look like another. Mike’s face seems to change between German Shepherd and Rottweiler. There’s no telling which way it will finally settle although I’m thinking it will be somewhere in the middle. A Rottie with stand up ears, probably. Or a GSD with a short Rottie muzzle.

Speaking of Rotties, Joella is doing good. She’s limping slightly but that’s to be expected.

Maybe Mike is having sympathy pains. They both have injured right legs.

I took Mike to the vet today. Yesterday, while we were gone, he did something to his back right leg. He wasn’t bearing any weight on it at first, then slowly was using it at times, mostly when standing still. He was uncomfortable but we were certain it wasn’t a break. He let me manipulate the foot and ankle/hock but wasn’t thrilled when I extended his hip. This morning he was bearing weight on it almost all the time but he walked like he was sitting on the saddle too long. So off to the vet we went.

He let Dr. K manipulate the hip although he didn’t like it. He didn’t cry out so we both agreed it wasn’t a break (such as a “green stick” fracture). She feels it might be a soft tissue (muscle/tendon) injury. We also decided it was time to neuter him so next Thursday (7th) he will get that done finally. While he is out, they’ll do x-rays on his hips and that knee. He is too young to diagnose hip dysplasia but there is a slight chance there may be something else structurally wrong. The chance is very slight but since this is the third or so time he has injured that same leg, we are doing the x-rays just to make sure. If nothing else, we have a baseline set of images for later.

Mike and I will have to miss the second class of Basic Manners II tonight, dangit.

Oh, and just so you don’t think I was mean for not taking him to the emergency clinic last night: if a dog will put weight on a leg, it usually isn’t broken. Sometimes they will for a greenstick fracture, but not often. When we first saw he wasn’t bearing weight at all, we touched him all over and watched him walk while discussing the time and where we could take him. He began putting weight on the leg when standing still and we decided to wait and see. The emergency clinic here is ghastly expensive and I knew I could at the worst drop Mike off this morning for our vet to check when they could. We examined him later again after everything had calmed down. Again, we felt he had pulled a muscle or sprained something. If he had been walking fine this morning, I probably wouldn’t have taken him in but with that odd, saddle sore like walk he had, we decided it would be best to have him checked.

This has been covered in several posts (house training) so I won’t give much background other than links throughout this post. ‘Kay?

On Saturday, Mike had to stay in his crate about 9 hrs because I was gone and Lorna had to work. Lorna took out the divider panel from the big crate so he had more room. She also gave him plenty of chew toys. When she got home, he ran straight outside, played for just a few seconds, the proceeded to pee a river.

AND Mike hiked his leg to do it! My boy is growing up so fast! sniff

There was no pee in the crate and no pee artwork on the way out the door. This is a HUGE advancement for Mike. He’s been on the urge incontinence med for a while now and sometimes we think there is improvement, and other times we don’t see any difference. His artwork has decreased, yes, but only when he has no access to water. Jo and I were at the vet’s last week for her yearly checkup and Dr. Knepshield and I briefly discussed Mike’s bladder problems. She feels that if he is still growing, still healthy, then keeping his water amount limited obviously isn’t harming him any. If keeping his water limited is what it takes to help him get over this, then it will be fine to keep doing it.

We’ve also started letting him out the back door vs taking him out front on the leash. He seems to like this more and always does his business while out there. As soon as he does both, I let him play a bit then we all come back in. His desire to eat stuff (sticks, walnut hulls, wet bark from the maple tree, etc) means he can’t be out unsupervised. I have noticed, though, that the more we are letting him out, the less he seems to be eating. We still have to watch him closely though. The dog ramp will be fixed soon which will make it easier to get him out there more often. I don’t want him just let out without being watched as I want him to be reinforced for doing his business.

I regularly read a vet’s blog called Dolittler (how could I resist that title?). Dr. Pat Khuly lives in Florida and shares not just the high-tech bits of being a veterinarian, she also shares tips, tricks, and bits from her own life.

Anyway, today’s post was about Hershey’s Cocoa Shell Mulch. Made from cocoa bean shells, the mulch is sold in gardening stores. It is a good concept in sustainability by using a by-product that otherwise would be filling a landfill. As with all other chocolate products, it contains Theobromine, the lethal ingredient that kills dogs. But the bag says it is not lethal to dogs that eat it. Tell that to the Labrador Retriever that just died in Florida.

More breaking news on dog-toxic Cocoa Mulch chips

…Just as surely as drinking a gallon of deep, dark hot chocolate would, “Cocoa Mulch” killed a local Lab mix named Calypso this past weekend. Calypso’s owners had purchased the mulch at their neighborhood Target. Advertised to help keep cats at bay, they must’ve thought it seemed like a good deal. A tragic mistake.

In case you’re wondering, Cocoa Mulch is a by-product of the chocolate industry. Hershey’s markets the husks of spent cocoa beans as mulch, claiming the following with respect to pet safety:

“It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won’t eat it.”

As the owner of a dog who will eat anything, I thought it prudent to tell others about this product.

Since Mike will eat anything within his reach outdoors, and since Spring is right around the corner, I decided it was time to brush up on what plants were poisonous to dogs. Plus, Lorna got me a pot of yellow tulips that I put outside today (the poor things were leaning way over trying to reach the sunny window) and the petals all blew off. Which, of course, Mike picked up and tried to eat.

According to the Humane Society of United States (HSUS) and their Common Poisonous Plant list, the poisonous part of a tulip is the bulb. It is also the poisonous part of the narcissus/daffodil. According to the ASPCA and their searchable list, all parts of a tulip are toxic with the bulbs having the heaviest concentration of the toxin. He also eats walnut hulls (not toxic to dogs) he finds out in the dog lot. He loves fruits, including apples (the seeds and stems are toxic to dogs) and bananas (not toxic to dogs).

I already know to not let him near my Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) vine. Every part of it is deadly poison to dogs and to children. It is still in its pot near the ramp, waiting to be planted as soon as the ground thaws enough. We’ll be putting it away from the usual dog places. It is an evergreen so there’s little risk of dead leaves being blown around.

Linkages:

HSUS Common Poisonous Plants list
ASPCA’s Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants (searchable!) – also their “people foods that are toxic to dogs” list
Toxic Plants to Dogs list (Pet Poison Helpline site)

At least, we think we have a diagnosis.

Mike’s vet, Dr. Knepshield, called Tuesday. His urine culture results were negative so no weird infection going on. Combined that news with the well-within-norm blood work up, the cause of Mike’s urinary problem narrowed down significantly.

The vet thinks Mike has what is called “urge incontinence”. It is more common in female dogs but can happen in males. In her research, she came across another male pup with almost exactly the same symptoms. That pup was helped via a human medication. Basically, Mike doesn’t mess his crate at night because he’s not moving around and he doesn’t have access to water. But, once he drinks water (and he drinks a lot of it), his brain and bladder don’t communicate very well. He can empty it easily enough, but he can’t KEEP from emptying it. His bladder doesn’t let the brain know it is full, resulting in leaking and flooding upon standing. Add to it that he can’t seem to hold it long enough to even finish standing up, he probably has “bladder sphincter” issues.

I picked up the medication today and he got his first dose at dinner. If this is indeed the problem, we should see a slow stopping of the piddling (aka artwork on the floor). If that happens, we’ll start reintroducing the water until he can consume and hold. We don’t know how long he will be on it. The vet’s office has never used this medication before. We’ll be learning together.

Here I get a pup to train as a Service Dog and we can’t get beyond house training!

Linkages:
urge incontinence
oxybutynin chloride (Ditropan) 5mg 1/2 tab 2x day

Oh, and a photo to appease the masses:

(click for larger image)

Wednesday, Mike and I went back to the vet’s office. I took pictures this time of his “artwork” on the floor (see the bottom of this post). I also took in a urine sample again. After a brief discussion, it was decided to do another urinalysis and to do a blood work up. I would get a call the next day about the results.

Thursday, Dr. Knepshield called. The blood work up was normal. Kidney function, liver function, everything was normal. Good. But the urinalysis showed a lot of white blood cells. Not good. Some male dogs have raised white cell counts basically because, well, they like to play with their penises. This creates slight irritation that shows up in the urine samples. Gross, but, there you have it. What she wanted to do was have us bring Mike in the next morning and, after getting his bladder full, they’d remove urine directly from the bladder, bypassing the urethra. Ouch!

This morning, we took Mike in at about 10am. She said it would take only a few hours so we did some errands. Eventually, I was exhausted from a headache so we went home. We didn’t hear anything until after 2pm. Mike’s bladder was not co-operating. Dr. Knepshield felt his abdomen when he got there at 10. His bladder was very empty so they put him in a small crate and gave him a big bowl of water. She figured she’d check on him in two hours. At 11:30, she went to check on him and was told it was too late. They said they were watching him and he had simply stood up and peed a river. Refill the water bowl and try to catch him again. But he did it again. And again. They took him out of the crate hoping he’d show a little better sign he had to go but I think that failed, too. Finally, when they called at 2ish, they had him with a partially full bladder and an ultrasound. They needed permission to knock him out so they could do the delicate work of extracting urine from the bladder. It was several more hours before we heard back.

The sample they had was very diluted from all the water he had drank but had no white blood cells. So they sent off the remaining sample to get a culture grown from it. Not that she expects to find anything, but that the experts she will consult with will ask if it was done. And that is where we are now. She’s going to do some research and consult some canine urologists while we wait for the culture to grow. The reason for all this is that she was greatly impressed with the amount of pee Mike can produce. And how he seems to have very little control over it the fuller his bladder is. She was also impressed with our patience and humor with him. I get the feeling he was cute, adorable, but very frustrating to them all today.

My headache was exploding at that point so Lorna went to get him. She said the entire staff seemed to know him and got down on the floor to play as he was leaving. And during their mid-day lull, David, one of the long time techs there, had taken Mike out of his crate to play for a while and Mike was running all over the hospital. What is it about this pup that pulls people to him? What is it about him that makes him so damn adorable?

We have to wait until at least Tuesday before we know anything. One possibility, and I think there are only two at this point, is that they will do a dye test to see how his plumbing is arranged. There might be some sort of problem somewhere. The second possibility is that this is all in Mike’s wee head. That somehow it is a psychological problem, not physical. And even if there is a physical reason, we may still need to deal with the psychology of it, to teach him how to pay more attention to his body.

Mike’s largest art piece to date. It covers about 3′ x 8′ of floor in the living room. Starting with the bottom image, Mike stood up from where he was laying and headed toward the door. Almost there, he started to pee. He then walked away from the puddle to finish his walk toward the door where he then tried to tell us he had to go out.

Yesterday, Mike returned to the vet’s as we try to figure out if his urine function is normal. The problem is Mike pees a lot. An awful lot. House training has been difficult. We’re now keeping the water on the other side of the gate where Mike can’t get to it. He gets all he wants 3 times a day and still he pees far too frequently. When he first went to our vet shortly after we got him, his urine was very diluted and had white blood cells. Meaning he was not concentrating his urine and he had an infection somewhere. He was on an antibiotic for a while. We took in another sample and this time the urine was properly concentrated and the white blood cells were gone. But the problem has persisted.

Mike is an interesting boy, medically. He got a rough start in life but recovered nicely. However, he can’t help but be effected by that, even though he was just a few weeks old when rescued. We humans can only try to understand just how that will manifest, if it will at all. This basically is polite talk for “it’s in his head”, or as the vet put it, is psychogenic. Mike may not have a grasp on what his body is trying to tell him (like when he needs to pee or poop).

The vet called today with some more ideas and thoughts based on her research and the input from others. Aside from the psychogenic, there are several possible scenarios. The good news is that the urine is concentrated and that rules out several diseases. Diabetes insipidus was topmost on our minds because we had a dog with it and their behaviors are very similar. But that was ruled out, thank the doggess! Strangely enough, the topmost possibility is E. coli. I found this in an Google search:

Bladder infections most commonly involve bacteria that are already normal
residents on (or in) the dog or cat. The most common infectious agent is
Escherichia coli (E. coli) which is present in almost half of urinary
tract infections in dogs and cats. This bacteria is a normal inhabitant of
the gastrointestinal tract but it does not belong in the urinary tract. It
is very good at invading the urinary tract if given any opportunity at all,
though. So any fecal contamination of the vulva or prepuce can lead to an
infection. Due to anatomy, this is more common in females than in males
(infection occurs more often).

It is very hard to clear up a bacterial infection when there are persistent
crystals or stones in the bladder, since these serve as a place for
bacteria to hide, as well as irritating the bladder and urethra, making it
easier for the bacteria to invade tissues.

(source)

The interesting thing about this is that there were crystals in the urine sample we took in yesterday.

The second possibility is Leptospirosis. Prevention of this type of bacterial infection is now included in vaccines so it is unlikely to be the culprit. However, because of the way it effects the kidneys, it is on the list. The website quoted above also has a section on Leptospirosis.

Treatment for both of these bacterial infections would be the same – a high dose of an antibiotic. The vet and I decided this is what we would do: we would start him on the antibiotic for a week starting tomorrow (we can’t get there to pick it up until morning) and continue withholding the water for a few more days. We will reintroduce the water and see how his peeing goes. If it improves even the slightest bit, we will continue the antibiotic for another 3 weeks.

We could take in another sample and have a culture grown to see what type of bacteria it is. However, almost any type of bacteria we would find would be treated with the same antibiotic unless it is a weird one or one that responds better with another type of antibiotic. We are opting to not do this basically because of time. We can’t get it to them until tomorrow and it would take 72hrs to get a proper growth. So that would be Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday before we’d get any answers. Meanwhile, if we start the antibiotic tomorrow, we’ll know by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, if it is making any difference.

Mike is a smart boy. Too smart to not have learned house training already. He knows the ring the bells to go out (“out” also includes going out to eat sticks and leaves). He has learned a lot from both the Puppy Class (we had our second one last night) and from our regular training here at home. So he’s not a stupid dog. It is this ability to learn that contradicts the urinary problem and makes it more of a physical thing than a mental one.

Oh! Almost forgot to tell you his weight! Mike is now 31.8 lbs! Double what he was a month ago! Big boy!

I was able to not only look at Mike’s teeth, but to also get some images of them. The trick is to catch ‘im while he’s sleeping.

In the first image, those two slightly larger bottom teeth might be new adult teeth but I don’t think they are. I checked back at the Donnerberg Rottweiler site but it’s still hard to tell.

The second photo clearly shows the baby canine tooth.

We go to the vet’s this afternoon to pick up Popcorn and to give them Mike’s urine sample (we weren’t able to catch it yesterday). No fecal sample yet since he and Sam keep wanting to go outside to play.

You can see larger views of the teeth photos over at Mike’s photo gallery in the “Growing Up Big” album.