The Curious Case of the doddering doggie

 

The update, if you read about Misty Saturday, is there is no update yet.  She has a vets appointment this afternoon, which may or may not leave us as confused as we are now.  But here is what's going on, should you not have stopped by lately.

-Tuesday or Wednesday, I started noticing that she was doing this odd deal of- for lack of a better term- having a 'ghost pee' after peeing, as if she was having a hard time getting it out.  Combined with the occasional "licking down there", I wondered if she might be getting an infection.

-Right afterwards, we took what looked to be a normal walk, but one she struggled a bit at the end.

-Throughout the week, she wasn't her normal, high energy self.  This came to a head Friday morning when she was barely mobile, and limping badly on her right front.  No pain on touching, but no desire to get up and about.  After consulting with the vet, we took her to the ER.

-Long story short, an exam showed her temp, heart, etc to be fine; manipulation of her leg showed zip; urinalysis showed her numbers to be fine- EXCEPT that her urine was "dilute".  Doc said there COULD be an infection they weren't picking up; that an ultrasound (which he admitted he was no expert at, and didn't charge us) might have shown something in the bladder, but an x-ray (under the same caveats and no charge) didn't pick it up.  As the next step would be expensive bloodwork that we weren't quite prepared for, we agreed on pain pills and a vet appointment ASAP.

-Wasn't all that short, was it? Well at least I left out the "Whining about sitting around for three hours" part.  Until now.

-The pain pills had little effect until Saturday AM (no surprise), where she is now moving about more freely, acting more normally, with the exception of not so much the "loud and playful" norm.  We've been keeping track of her eating (pretty much normal) and drinking (maybe a weenie bit more for her, but in line with a dog her weight), getting her to play as she is able, and limiting walks to around the building for now.

-Right now, the thing that is worrying me is that when she gets up, she's still wobbly for a few steps, and not real graceful at turns (not that she ever was, TBH), and the pain pills are done as of last night.  I'm wondering what the effect of being off them will be, although right now she is doing her normal 'Mommy's out, Daddy's at the computer' gig (AKA Going upstairs in case Daddy has to yell at the computer), so she's still pretty mobile at the point she'd be due for the next pill.

This is what I got just now checking on her.  She's been kinda favoring hard surfaces lately, though she slept with me all last night without a problem (vs a 20-minute "get comfortable" challenge Friday night and staying downstairs Saturday).  Also, just got her a soft-food treat can for lunch which she jumped and pranced for and sucked down in seconds.  So you tell me.  I stayed home from work today so I wouldn't spend the day thinking dog instead of fabric, as well as making the whole "Appointment/work" schedule easier for all involved.  Keep us in your prayers for this vet trip is all I can add.