Remembering Gilda Radner...

For those of you who are about my age, you might remember Gilda's phrase "if it's not one thing, it's another"........ and my trite response is "truer words were never spoken".

Rox was incontinent of urine twice. Once Wednesday night and once Thursday night. In our bed. After a session of Humpy Humpy.

Sound icky? Bob thought so.

So it went like this: Rox and Bob were in bed (the old story about her not sleeping with us ---- well, that's a story for another time). Rox likes to show she's the boss once in a while by doing the Humpy Humpy. In general, we ignore it, giving her a bit of freedom to "show us who's boss", as it were. After she laid down to sleep she made a pee-pee.

The first night Bob found the wet spot but didn't know how it happened. Thursday night he saw her lay down, pee, then jump up like she'd ... well, just pee'd in bed! She was surprised and ashamed. We know she was ashamed because she hid under the bed.

Urinating while sleeping is one symptom of urinary tract infection in dogs so we saw Dr. Putt today. Turns out Baby Girl has lots of bacteria in her urine, not as many white cells as expected, and tons of struvite crystals. What does this all mean?

Rox has a bladder infection that we caught early and the crystals in her urine are precursors to bladder stones. An xray showed no stones yet, and they may never develop. Some dogs have crystals and never get stones. But most do. So....

Antibiotics for bladder infection and a change in diet for Crystal Girl. And mom has a new project researching crystals and stones and high urine pH and etc......

Rox may not have any pain right now, although we have seen one instance of "scooting" that looked like she might be trying to "scratch her pootie". For those of you who are unfamiliar with canine anatomy, the pootie is where the urine comes out on a female. It's a much more fun word to say than "urethral opening". For a male dog, the urine comes out of his winkie. Life is so much more fun if you know the secret language!

Off to research --- Rox is sleeping dry as I type.

"Sleeping dry" = code for no pee-pee.

The Dark Side Prevails

Seems our girl can tell time... or can she?! She has always gone out for her 3-times, 3-treats bedtime potty break at 9 PM. Sometimes it's 8:50 or so, but never later than 9...

So now the days are shorter, fall has arrived. And Baby Girl comes to get us at...... 8 PM !!!! She's shifted a whole hour now that it's getting darker sooner.

I have to wonder how she does it - it is exactly one hour earlier.... the only thing that hasn't changed is the 3 trips, 3 treats ~

We're pretty sure she thinks she's pulling one over on us.... she always looks so proud of herself accepting the third treat.

Sshhh, don't tell her --- we break one treat up into three pieces!

Folks peeping in our windows will scratch their heads at two people laughing hysterically and one dog smiling smugly.....

No harm, no foul.......... We all three go to bed happy...... :-)

Boo-Boos Healing Nicely

The title says it all. No infection or long term effects from the River Otter Adventure. Tomorrow is the last day of antibiotics.

Bob is concerned about her hair growing back in time for winter. He doesn't want her to get cold on their walks.....

I smell a new doggy coat in the wind. Perhaps wool or fleece, and definitely red. Would matching boots be too much?

A Mystery For Your Viewing Pleasure

Remember the red plaid bed Rox got when she came to live with us? Remember the red chairs and the blue chairs and the laps?

Somehow, for some reason, Rox decided to try out less commodious accommodations this summer. Who can figure what goes on in her sweet little mind?!

Behind things and underneath things seemed to be the order of the day. Sleep comes in strange places.....

It Just Doesn't Stop.... Rabbit? No, Thank You.

Bob and Rox were in Bob's car on the way to the park for a walk. Bob looks over to see Rox's head down near the floor. No sound, no gagging, no retching....... just a big pile of regurgitated rabbit guts.

Yes, the visual is as bad as the real thing. I tossed 4 times....

Not knowing what "it" was, and worried about some relationship to the otter incident or meds resulting therefrom, Bob bagged the barf and I headed off to the vet's office to let THEM look at it. My thinking was why not share the adventure?!

Dr. Plein, the only male vet in the practice took a look and declared "rabbit guts".

I wasn't surprised because half way to the vet my cell rang and it was Bob telling me he'd found a rabbit 4 feet from the patio door. It was missing some hair and it's insides. Ah, a clue.....

So here's the upside: Rox may have thrown up all there is to throw up. The downside is she may still throw up some more.....

Rabbits carry tapeworms so we have to take her back in 1 month to get a shot for tapeworm after any possible tapes go thru one life cycle.

Dr. Plein was concerned that Rox was being exposed to all this wild critter stuff. I assured him she is always on a leash (otter attacked her) and always in a fenced, locked-gate back yard in a subdivision (rabbit).

So we think Rox must have been pretty proud, she had dragged the dead half-eaten rabbit up to the patio to either show it off, or bring it in the house. The only thing that saved us was Bob calling her to go for a walk. She drops everything for walks.

She's only got one eye! How does she do this stuff?

And she's not kissing me for a long time !!!!

Icky poo and gag-city-to-the-max!

Sorry, we decided not to photograph either the gag bag or the empty-in-the-middle-bunny. I'm sure you understand..........

Follow the Scent Home

An interesting note to all the otter attack hysteria...

When Rox slipped her collar and ran after the otters bit her butt, her instinct was to run for safety and/or home. She ran right past Bob and turned in at the sidewalk to John and Diane's condo. Bob found her panting at their door.

We had been to their condo the night before and Bob figures Rox smelled our scent on the path, and chose it as the way to safety.

I guess scents linger. I suppose that's how bloodhounds track their quarry.

I guess that makes Roxie a bloodhound dachshund.

Good to know that her instinct was to "go home"....

The Dreaded Cadillac Crate That Made Roxie Cry

This is the crate that made Roxie cry. This thing is HUGE. It takes up the entire back seat of an SUV. It's made for car safety. Roxie didn't see it that way.

There is a foam pad on the bottom, two pillows at one end (one of them is mine, by the way, with my scent on it - although it is now hers, with HER scent on it...) and her favorite quilt.

I'm proud I got her the biggest one that would fit. I'm proud I got one to fit in the middle seat so she could be by us and not get hurt in a rear-end collision. Putting her in the way back seemed to be too much like cargo, so she made the middle.

We petted her with our fingers through the cage bars. She was not impressed. We talked to her almost all the way. She was not impressed. We fluffed up her pillows. She was not impressed. We told her we loved her enough to keep her safe. She was not impressed.

I feel like a bad mom putting her "in a cage" but it really and truly is the most safe way to travel. If I could have sat in the back and held her I would have, but she would have tried to get into the front seat and would have cried until she got there. So we opted to put up with the crying (which broke our hearts) to keep her safe.

She is not impressed.

A Girl and Her Daddy

At the rest stop on the way home from up north. I zoomed in for a closer shot...

This is behind the brick outhouse....

This is Bob wishing I'd leave him out of the pictures... isn't Roxie pretty? Can't see her shaved butt from this angle....

River Otter - 1, Roxie - 0

Our long week-end up north turned out a little different than we had planned....

We got special permission from the owner of a condo in a resort up north on Lake Michigan to bring Roxie. We thought she'd love walks in the the woods and a different environment for a change. Our hopes were high and we were excited about the mini-vacation.

For safety reasons, we made the huge decision to get a travelling crate for Roxie for the trip. She thinks, being moderately spoiled, that her place in the car is in the driver's lap. Someone before us did her that disservice - she cries if she's in the back seat, cries if she's in the passenger seat and tries to jump into the driver's lap when she can. Obviously not a safe thing to do.

Bob lets her ride in the front passenger seat to the park, as the airbag does not trigger because she's too light weight. But for me, that's still unsafe. In an accident she could go thru the windshield or out the door. So as much as I HATE cages, we got her one for the middle seat. It's huge, the cadillac of crates, and filled it with pillows, pads, and quilts. She can turn around and sleep crosswise in it, it's so big.

So off we go, Roxie in her specially decorated crate. The trip was 330 miles. She screamed and cried for 260 miles. Believe me when I say it was pathetic, heartbreaking and headache-inducing. Not to mention her laryngitis upon arrival at the resort.

Trying to be especially kind, we stopped every 75 miles or so and walked her, gave her treats and pets. No dice. She must have been royally pissed at being in jail.

At about 250 miles I called back to our vet and asked what we could give her to "shut her up".... now, truly I didn't say it exactly like that, but the intent was implied. Bless her little noisy heart.

Turns out that Xanax is a wonder drug. We used it on the return trip and it cut out about 80% of the crying.

Spoiled behavior... or anxiety? Whatever, Xanax is the drug of choice for long trips in the safety of her crate.

Next on the list of excitement: wild critters in the North Woods. Northern Michigan is really very rural and woodsy. I freely admit to being a suburban gal. Don't like flies, bugs, critters, dirt, lack of amenities... you get the idea. So when Bob was walking Roxie for her daily business trips, his stories of adventure went right over my head.

Long story short, they saw (at close range!) skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, foxes and most importantly, river otters. The northern Michigan river otters apparently like to hide under cars and attack unsuspecting dachshunds walking by. And if you are a regular reader, you know that Roxie lives to fight those wild critters....

The otter attacked, Roxie countered, slipped her collar, chased the otter into it's river den and we guess found a nest of them. She chose retreat as the better part of valor and got her ass chewed on the way out.

In the midst of the fray, Bob hit the otter on the head with his flashlight to get it off of Rox, and he was left holding the huge Flashlight-That-Shines-to-China, a leash with an empty collar and no dog in sight. Should mention here that it was 6:30 AM and pitch-pitch-inky-black. The otter will undoubtedly have a headache.

War wounds below. They shaved her beautiful hair and found many little scrapes, bites, punctures and lacerations. She looks like a patchwork baby.

Luckily she'd had her rabies vaccination last month after a close encounter of the raccoon kind, and she got her distemper at the vet along with antibiotics and pain meds.

This latest-and-greatest adventure occured on our last morning there. We threw everything in the car, wrapped her in a towel and took off for a five-hour drive to our home vet. Lesson learned - scout out local vets when travelling.

Roxie had a quieter ride home with the Xanax, our vet was wonderful, Roxie acted like a lady while they worked on her and I gave her a major pain pill for that night. She slept like a log and woke up refreshed on Monday AM. She's bruised and puffy, but no infection so far. She grumbles if you try to touch her boo-boos, so we avoid that.

We're wondering if she's thinking she had great adventure... she might be dreaming of the otter she chased away, who knows...

On the long ride home, I kept thinking how upset I was, how I couldn't deal with all the potential trauma, all the "what-ifs" and I finally came round to accept that this is just who she is.... she's good with most dogs and wonderful with kids, but she HATES critters, especially those nasty north Michigan otters.

Of course, in the future, we won't be walking her in the dark in the forest....