$258.56 later update

Lothlorien

Active Member
and still don't know what's going on with the dog. Hopefully, will find out tomorrow. Vet thinks she has what most female spayed dogs get when they get older. See, she leaks when she gets up. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not, but the other day it happened on the NEW leather couch that we just bought because she ruined the old couch. It smelled fishy, so I took her to the vet. Vet took a urine sample and says it looked cloudy, so could be infection. Could be both.

If it's infection he will give her antibiotics tomorrow (when results come back). After two weeks, if she's still leaking, then the other medications. She's 10 this coming Saturday. Though she's still quite a spunky little thing, she's getting old for a little 12 pound dog. I think she's going to continue to leak.

Wow, that was a whopper of a bill that I was not expecting. Guess I need to get some more hours in.

I feel bad for her, because we've been gating her off from the living room, so she doesn't mess up the new furniture. Though it's leather, it can still get into the back of the couch and ruin it. She's all out of sorts, now. Somehow, she opened my bedroom door last night and woke me up at 5 am, making this really odd noise. I think she was having a nightmare. She went back downstairs and I could hear her nails clicking on the floor downstairs, trying to find a way into the living room. The poor thing.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Loth, a really strong 'fishy' smell from a dog is usually their anal glands needing to be emptied. Sometimes they leak if they need to be expressed and they can get infected and even rupture. Did the vet check her for that?
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Actually, small dogs live longer than large dogs. At ten or so your little dog is at the upper end of middle aged.

The "female leakage" issue can be easily treated with a very low dose of hormones. There is also a medication (once used in human diet and cold medicines) that has turned out to work very well for this problem in older pets.

These are maintenance medications and would probably run you less than twenty dollars per month; especially if your vet will write you a rx you can use at an online pharmacy.

Your dog likely has a whole lot of good years left in her, yet, and you should be able to help this with medications.

toK
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
Honeysue's bladder would let go even while she was sleeping. Vet said that some females that are spayed end up with this problem. She was put on a hormone and it fixed the problem. No more waking up to a dog sleeping in a lake of urine. It was pitiful actually.

I feel your pain in regards to the shocking vet bills.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Thanks Fran.

The hormones are basically like what you would find in the ones used for menopause in humans, only formulated for dogs.

We have to remember that a "spay" is actually the removal of both the uterus and the ovaries, e.g. a complete hysterectomy.

Just as some human females have problems after a surgical menopause (or especially one that takes place before puberty, say due to some sort of birth defect), some female dogs just need a little help with this.

One nice thing is that the dogs don't really have to worry about some of the icky side effects to hormone supplementation that we humans do. They do really well with it. (of course, they don't smoke, drink, eat too much salt, etc.)

To put it in perspective. I had a huge malamute and who knows what (might've been Pyr, she was cream colored with "biscuit markings" on her ears, but had a lot more fur).

I had her spayed when I got her at an estimated age of a year or so.

She developed leakage problems after about three years. I had her put on the hormones at that point and all went well until she was in her mid-teens.

I did wind up putting Lady down but due to crippling arthritis and uncontrollable pain (this was before arthritis medications for dogs). The wetting never came back.
 

Suz

(the future) MRS. GERE
Yep. Count me in as owner who used inexpensive hormones with a dog successfully. Brandy was 11 or so when she started to leak. The hormones took care of it with no negative side effects.

I hope it's this simple for you, Loth.

Suz
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
It's a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and apparently it's gone up to the kidneys, because kidney bloodwork came back poor. Could still be kidney disease, but it's likely from the infection. So three weeks of antibiotics. If she's still leaking he'll put her on the hormone.
 

lovemysons

Well-Known Member
Glad you found out what's going on with your pooch...hopefully she starts feeling better soon.

This board has been through it all huh...human and animal alike.
Tammy
 
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