My Dog has a Bladder Infection!

I swear, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. It really freaking is. This time, it’s not me, or my husband, or even my daughter, but my dog. My poor little pup, Scarlet.

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We have two dogs, a 6 year old lab, Sable and a 2 year old lab mix, Scarlet. They are both inside/outside dogs. They are wonderful dogs. They have both been house trained since they were a couple months old.

So, when Scarlet randomly started urinating everywhere in the house, I knew something was wrong.

As previously stated, we went to Thunder on Saturday, so we were gone for the majority of the day. We left the dogs inside. This is not uncommon for them because they stay in the house all day while we are at work and we’ve never had a problem with them having accidents in the house. I still asked my mom to come over and let the dogs out just to be safe. No issues with them while she was there, as expected. Whenever I got home about 4 hours later, I stepped in pee as soon as I walked in the door. I thought, okay, well, they have been in the house all day.

I just brushed it off, put Raelynn to bed, and went to bed myself. This was around midnight. I woke up around 6:30 to hear the dogs pacing the floor. I figured they probably needed to go out. I got up, walked in the kitchen, and there was pee. Again. I thought this was a little uncommon, but still brushed it off.

Around 9:00 a.m., I put Raelynn to sleep in her crib for a nap. I have to shut the door behind me or else the dogs will follow me in. 5 minutes later I walked out and there was pee outside of her door.

Something was not right.

I didn’t feel okay with this amount of accidents. From these three accidents so far, I really didn’t know which dog it was. I hadn’t caught either of them in the act and they were both acting okay. I started thinking, what if they are pissed off at me, or us, or Raelynn? She’s been around for 8 months, but still, could the intrusion of a baby really be affecting them now? This late? Or were they mad that we left them in the house all day? Again, this was not an uncommon situation for them to be in the house all day. I was really confused.

My grandma came over around 3:00 p.m. to see Raelynn. Since we have huge, rambunctious dogs, we always have to block them off from the living room or put them outside. It was pouring rain, so we blocked them off from being able to go in the living room. I put their beds and toys in the other room where the dogs were so they would have them. not even 20 minutes later, I looked in the room and there was pee all over the dog bed.

WHAT THE HELL?

I was really starting to get concerned. And I still didn’t know who the culprit was. Again, both dogs were still acting fine.

No more accidents after that really. I heard the dogs start pacing the floors again around 3:00 a.m. the following morning, so I let them out and they both went to pee, but no accidents. I was happy with that. I was really leaning towards the fact that one of them had to just be really pissed off at us. I didn’t want to take a chance and leave them in the house all day, so we left them outside. They have a nice little place outside, a huge dog house and a nice little deck on the outside of their doghouse with plenty of shade. I just didn’t want to take a chance of one of them peeing and it being in the house all day long. I could only imagine the stench. When we got home there were no accidents for the rest of the night.

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We went to bed around 10:00 p.m. and I woke to the dogs pacing the floor at 11:00 p.m. I walked down the hallway and there was pee everywhere. There was pee in about three different spots and it was huge puddles. And I caught Scarlet in the act of peeing by the back door. I went in the living room and it had went under the couch. I woke up my husband and told him something was wrong with Scarlet. We cleaned up all the pee, let both dogs outside, and tried to figure out what to do.

As far as we could tell up to that point, Scarlet was still acting okay. We let them back in and I pulled Scarlet’s bed close to the couch. I laid on the couch and tried to get her to lay on the bed next to me. She would lay down for about 5 minutes and then have to switch positions. Then she would have to go outside again to go pee. She was clearly getting uncomfortable. She was peeing about 3 times an hour. My husband and I basically stayed awake all night in order to make sure she could go outside and not have any accidents. Not to mention, she just continued to walk around the house and only sit or lay in one position for about 5 minutes.

I knew we needed to get her to the vet.

Peeing this much was not okay. And she was starting to become uncomfortable. I called the vet as soon as they opened and got her in for a 10:00 a.m. appointment. They told me they would need a urine sample. I was actually able to get one fairly easily because she was peeing so much. Whenever we got to the vet, they immediately took us back and tested her urine. The vet told me she could see little traces of blood in her urine, but that was it. No crystals or anything like that. She continued to do a physical examination of her whole body and her prognosis was a bladder infection.

I had no idea that dogs could get these. She said it’s usually caused by holding their pee for too long. Crazy, right? She gave her a shot with antibiotics it in and told me I should see a decrease in her peeing in about 48 hours. Then we got some tablets she is supposed to take once a day for two weeks to help kill the infection and then in two weeks I have to take a urine sample back to the vet so they can test it to make sure there is no more blood in her urine. The vet told me since I caught it so early, I probably saved her some pain and she will heal much quicker.

SHEW….I was happy that was over with.

We got home and you could tell how tired she was from not sleeping the night before. I monitored her bathroom breaks for the remainder of the day. She went at 11:30, 12:30, 3:30, then not again until around 9:30. In between her bathroom breaks, she mostly slept. I could see a considerable difference in her within hours. I was very pleased.

As I’m sure you anxious people can imagine…my anxiety was in overdrive yesterday. I immediately thought of the worst case scenario. Cancer…dying…But, it wasn’t any of that. I’m glad I listened to my heart and went to the vet when we did. Once we got her diagnosis I could feel the tension float away.

I’ve always said that my dogs are like my kids, even before I had kids. Now that I do have a kid, I still stand by that. Scarlet and Sable really are like my kids. If you aren’t a dog person, I don’t expect you to understand that.

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