Auggie’s Pee Saga Continues

This morning I let the boys out to pee. Auggie squatted to pee, then almost immediately decided he would rather bark at my mom moving cars in the driveway instead. “Auggie, you still have to pee,” I told him, and sent him back out into the yard. He came back on the deck and barked in my face instead. So we came inside for breakfast. I sent him back out after eating and all he did was poop. Fine, it’s YOUR problem if you don’t want to pee.

Except it wasn’t exactly like that, as I would find out later.

When I came home for lunch and let him out, he squatted, then did the little “Imma wag my tail while squatting” thing which he first did when he had his UTI last year. He has since done this a few times, causing me to freak out and immediately get a urine sample to the vet only for it to come up clear. It still makes me pay more attention, but doesn’t cause immediate worry like it used to. I do know when he is wagging his tail, he’s not peeing yet, and it’s not until he stops wagging his tail (or just moves and tries a new location) that he actually pees. So he moved and squatted again.
And then I realized it didn’t look like he was ACTUALLY peeing.
I told him to try again, so he picked another spot – and this time I was watching closely – squatted… no pee. After a little bit a few dribbles came out, but no real pee.

I went inside and called the vet. Doc was at lunch but they would call me back as soon as he came back to the office and let me know what they wanted to do. I took Auggie back outside and asked him to pee again. He tried a few more times but each time nothing came out. I could tell he obviously HAD to go – for one thing, he gets his food floated in about a cup of water, so I knew there was pee in his bladder – but nothing was coming out. Not. good.

Auggie came back to work with me while I waited to hear back from my vet, then off we went rather quickly to be worked into the schedule.

Doc couldn’t feel anything obvious, but as I expected, an x-ray was first up to make sure there weren’t any stones floating around, even if he couldn’t feel anything. Away the little pup went for his x-ray, then came back looking smug. I wondered if he had peed all over their x-ray equipment, but no, he had just been a very good boy for his x-rays. Doc came in with the x-rays after a few minutes and… nothing. Nothing on the x-ray at all. So away Auggie went again, this time to have a catheter run. Doc warned me they might have to sedate him a little to get the cath in, which, if you remember from Auggie’s last annual, he has developed a heart murmur, so that gave me some anxiety. Back in they come, Auggie looking EXCEPTIONALLY smug now and not woozy at all. They hadn’t had to sedate him, he was very good, he had peed AROUND the cath even. So they had collected a urine sample and were running it, but visually, there wasn’t a lot of blood or anything. It could come back with a bladder infection, but it could also be clear, and if it was clear, we were out of ideas as to what was up.

At this point I seriously started to think my dog was trolling me. Especially as he sat on the floor looking at Doc and Doc gave him some cookies. Auggie, we have cookies at HOME, okay? And they’re a lot cheaper. You don’t need to fake me out just to come get cookies from Doc. That is ridiculous.

So after the urinalysis was finished, Doc came in and said “Good news!”
“He has a bladder infection?” I asked. In what world, exactly, is it good news that your dog has a bladder infection? In my world, where money is tight, and cute little dogs are threatened with a horrible death when they go to the vet and run up bills for no good reason.
“Yep! Lots of white blood cells and bacteria in there.”
“Whoo-hoo! Auggie, you get to live after all!”
(I am, of course, joking. I was trying to fight off a panic attack and trying very hard NOT to cry this afternoon when I realized we had a problem. I love my Auggie doggie even though he may be the biggest snotbucket in the world.)

We came home with antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory too, since he is likely pretty sore and inflamed to not have been peeing. Poor baby dog! Hopefully he will get to feeling better in a few days here. We’ll go back next week and run another urinalysis to make sure we’re in the clear. I sure hope so. I don’t want the poor thing locked into another cycle of urinalysis after urinalysis and I definitely don’t want any stones developing from this infection like we had last year. So hopefully this chapter in Auggie’s Pee Saga will be a short one!