Dog losing control of bladder
My pet dog is 15 yrs old (female neutered Spitz cross) and just had a geriatric blood work profile done.(for dental). Just about a week or so ago she started to urinate in her kennel while I was at work (never before). She also cannot hold it in the house at night time. She leaks a little when asleep, but also wake up to go outside. She has been taking medicine for a possible urinary tract infection, but it is not helping. The results on the urine sample showed a little blood, but not much infection. What can be the problem? |
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Dog with hypothyroidism and back problems
Our 9 year old beagle had been in good health, but had been getting fat and lazy in her older years. We took her to the vet for routine checkup and mentioned that she slept most of the day so the vet did some blood work and determined that her thyroid level was way low (0.1%). The vet started her on a medication of thyroxine, 0.4mg a day.
At first the dog was much more alert and seemed to have much more energy than she had before. She also lost a fair amount of weight very fast, from 37.5 pounds down to 31.5 pounds. Then, on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, she got really sick....
all of the sudden she could hardly stand. She couldn't hold her bladder, her stomach seemed bloated and she was panting hard. We took her to an emergency hospital and they basically said she had a stomach ache, that she was OK and sent us home.
She appeared to get better, and the next day we were out of town (the dog was with us) and she got a lot worse. We found a new emergency vet and he took xrays and said that she had back problems, basically a compressed disk. He gave us something for her pain, Rimadyl - 25mg.
We started off giving her one pill a day, and it seemed to help. But a few days later she was bad again. Our regular vet recommended increasing the dosage to twice a day, for both the Thyroxine and Rimadyl.
She has been on the twice a day rate for a little over a week now, and she has her good days and bad days. My concern is that overall she seems to be getting worse, and I don't understand how the symptoms match the diagnosis.
Even when she is feeling bad I can pet/scratch her back, including the area of this compressed disk and she doesn't indicate any signs of tenderness. Her stomach, however, gets very tender.
I have noticed that she will usually get worse right after she eats, like within 1/2 an hour of eating. Before she eats, she is bouncing around a little begging for food, 1/2 hour later she is walking like a drunken sailor.
She has been sensitive to being picked up for a number of years, which we have attributed to arthritus. She has always been the most sensitive to being picked up from under her rib cage. Conversely, she loves a good vigourous back scratch.
So, my questions is: should I accept what the vets have told me, or should I continue to investigate?
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