Winter months are cold, wet, and in my opinion, miserable. Due to darkness settling in so early during the winter months, the newest routine was this: straight home from work, change my shoes, change my jacket and out the door Bruno and I go. When the weather was clear, this allowed Bruno and I to at least start our walk in a little bit of daylight and sunshine.
The routine was no different on the last Monday in January. Once outside Bruno began to carry out one of his own routines – peeing on everything. Being a boy dog, he thinks he must mark everything that comes across his path and within peripheral vision. I noticed that he seemed to be straining a little bit when he peed. I then began to pay attention and noticed that the more he peed, the darker his urine was and the more he strained.
I whipped out my phone and called Dr. Yamate. The phone diagnosis from Dr. Y was more than likely a urinary tract infection. Her instructions were to get a urine sample to my western vet as soon as possible, which I managed to do that evening. On Tuesday the results from the urine sample confirmed a urinary tract infection. I trudged back to the vet office and picked up Amoxicillin for my boy.
January had started off with stitches and February was going, to begin with, antibiotics. I hoped a pattern was not starting.
*Originally posted July 8, 2010*
