Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Urinary Tract Infection


Well, apparently UTI's are very common in dogs. Neither of our dogs have had it before, but Addie definitely had it this past week. It started on Friday night. She had an accident in the house while we were out and we knew something was wrong as she hasn't done that since she was a puppy! But being the great dog she is, she found a rubber mat by the door to use which was the best of all places :-) She also had to go outside urgently every 3-4 hours.

Since it was the weekend and our vet was closed, we tried some cranberry extract. That actually worked pretty well until Monday when we could get a urine sample tested. It was an infection as we had assumed. Our general vet recommended antibiotics, but our holistic vet had another approach with herbal pills that did not include antibiotics. We tried the holistic route since she is on Neoplasene and we didn't want to risk any interference. Within 2 days, she was 100%, but still taking the pills for another week.

Overall, she has been very active. Taking 6-8 mile hikes with us on Sundays, playing with her toys, and generally in good health/spirits. We are at the 10 month post diagnosis mark and still counting....

The picture above is her hiking (ok running) 2 weeks ago with Shep and cousin Mazie.