When I became a dog mom to Murphy 14 years ago, I never thought I would find myself blogging about dog pee. But then again, life always manages to throw you a curve when you least expect it or worse, when you need it least.
Murphy is a rat terrier and a great one at that. He did his time as a pet therapy dog at two nursing homes and as a demo dog for a training center. In his day, he was an incredible jumper, showing off his "able to leap tall buildings" talents by jumping as high and higher than the big dogs in demo. He was a star, all he was missing was a cap with a big M on the front.
After having been diagnosed with a severe heart murmur a month ago, he went on Lasix for two weeks and Enalapril for life. Since he was asymptomatic (no coughing or wheezing) life went on. Then about two weeks ago, I began to notice he was drinking more and more and worse, he was putting out an ungodly amount of urine. I wondered how a 15 pound dog could possibly urinate that much and as often as he did. It didn't even look like urine anymore. The term "yellow snow" became "off white snow" then just "snow" as it became as clear as the liquid going in.
Discussion with his vet, Dr. Pat resulted in two considerations: a) possible UTI, though he was peeing loads, not dribbles; or b) it may be a result of a side effect of the Enalapril. I expected this when he was on the Lasix, but he had been off it for more than a week. We decided to take him of the Enalapril for a few days and then reassess our position. He was getting me up one to two times a night so he could pee like a race horse.
For a few days, things went along fine, the peeing and drinking seemed better, but by the weekend, it was back. So I decided to take a urine sample in. This was actually easy since he stood and urinated for a good minute straight each time. The sample was very clear, but very pale. My vets office ran the sample and Dr. Heidi came out to report the sample was fine, no sugar or infection but it was so diluted that we could be missing something. She decided to try him on a course of antibiotics just in case. She also mentioned the possibility of a rare condition called Diabetes Insipidus. A form of diabetes where the kidneys can no longer concentrate urine.
The next morning, I discovered that Murphy had wet his pillow on the other side of the bed. When I took the case off, I discovered this had been going on for a while. It was very stained, but because the urine was so diluted, there was no odor. The next morning, Murphy got off the bed about 3 a.m. gave a quick whine and promptly urinated on the carpet. I of course yelled at him to stop, but he just hung his head and kept going. Clearly, this was beyond his control. It was such a massive amount, it took an entire roll of toweling to soak it all up, along with a heavy dusting of baking soda to absorb anything I missed (great tip: buy it by the big box in the laundry aisle at Wal-mart). Then he went outside and urinated another world champion cupful.
By Monday I was back to calling the vet. The next day I had to go to the office for meetings, it meant Murphy would be crated for the day and I expected a wet crate, but what I got rivaled Noah and his flood. Murphy had put out what had to be a gallon. The layer of three crate pads was so soaked, I could wring them out. And if that wasn't enough, he went outside and urinated three more times, a huge amount each spot and then kept going out about each hour and doing the same. Dr. Pat's office called and decided that a water deprivation test would be needed. We scheduled it for the next day as I just wanted some answers and to find out how to fix him.
As a result of the water test, he couldn't have any food or water after 10 p.m. I simply just covered the large water dish with a very heavy wooden cutting board. Off to bed we went. By this time, I was putting waterproof pads on the bed and on his pillow and just washing them daily. Around 4:30 a.m. he gave a little whine and I felt the bed, yup, wet. Outside we went where he urinated another quart. He came in, and stood at the water dish which was covered up. Reluctantly, he came back to bed. About five minutes later, I could hear thumping and discovered he had gone back down to the water dish to try and figure out how to lift that board up. I shagged him back to bed and put the gate up at the top of the steps. I couldn't help but think how consumed he was with his desire/need for water.
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