The Reluctant Bed Wetter

Mr Bacchus walked into the room, and peed on the carpet in front of his dismayed humans for the first time in twelve years. As they sprinted to contain the mess, the phone in our secret lair jangled. We were on the case!

An animal is in trouble? I'll be right there!

Since Bacchus was an older male dog, infection was less likely but never impossible. Did he have urinary bladder stones? Diabetes? Adrenal disease?

Happily, Bacchus' xrays didn't show stones in his bladder. His urinalysis and culture didn't grow any bacteria. However, his blood work was suspicious of one of two things: leukemia or tick disease.  We crossed our paws for tick disease, the least of the evils, even though he was an apparently tick-free short coated house dog.

Tick disease, specifically Ehrlichia, is a bacteria that lives inside white blood cells and is spread by tick bites. There are no tick control products yet that kill ticks faster than infected tick bites spread the bacteria. It is now endemic in San Diego, meaning it's here to stay. It can cause dramatic illness such as life threatening anemia, but can also slowly damage dogs' kidneys while they act completely normal. Luckily we test for it yearly!

What a relief!

We loaded 3 drops of Bacchus' blood into the test, waited ten minutes, and zing! Happy news! Instead of cancer, he had Ehrlichia and needed a month's worth of inexpensive antibiotics. 

#turquoisetails #howtotrainyourhuman #turquoiseanimalhospital #superpets #shyla_howtotrainyourhuman

Comments

  1. meilittleSeptember 1, 2020 at 1:49 PM

    very effective good information is share by you it is very important to understand the value of the feelings of your pets their problems are your so feel the reality to understand what is the problem is keep sharing more important information


    pets home

    ReplyDelete

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