Jilly's Trip to the Emergency Vet...

Last Sunday we took Jilly to the emergency vet clinic. She threw up once Saturday, and we thought she must have gotten into something, especially since she seemed just fine otherwise. Sunday I ellipticalled, did push ups and showered while Jilly stayed in her pen with her water, bed, and puppy pad. I was gone for about two hours with all of that, and I didn't check Jilly in the living room because I didn't want her to get excited to see me only to have me leave again. Once I did come back out I was shocked by what I found.

Jilly had peed three times and thrown up once while I was gone. She was shaking while in her pen. I took her out and sat on the couch with her and she went right to sleep, sometimes shaking in her sleep. I was really concerned, but Craig was gone and I couldn't help but think maybe she was just stressed out by me being gone but in the house for so long. I also wanted to see her reaction when Craig came home. He was back within 40 minutes and while Jilly did get off the couch to greet him, it wasn't her usual greeting.

So I played with her while Craig called our vet, and then the emergency vet. While we were playing she had an accident, which was strange because she had been accident free for 3 weeks until that day. We took her straight to the emergency vet and she was diagnosed with a UTI. We got antibiotics for it and have been giving them to her every day for the past week. It took us a little while to realize, but she likes the taste of the antibiotics and she hated the dropper, so Craig drops the antibiotics onto my palm and Jilly licks them off.

Today she had a follow up appointment with our vet, and I took a urine sample in with me (obtained through cutting up a garbage bag and not allowing her to leave it until she peed on it, she *loved* that, lol). Her urine was full of white blood cells, and while her symptoms have decreased a lot, she still pees often and never had a really big puddle (she didn't have a big puddle often before the trip to the e-vet either). The vet thinks she has vaginitis, which means we'll need to wait until she's had a heat cycle before spaying her. It's basically a result of having a not fully developed reproductive system. Getting spayed after a heat cycle should take care of the problem though.

We'll do another follow up in a week and the vet may do a more extensive exam, depending on her symptoms. The really bad thing about this though, is that often small dogs don't get their first heat cycle until sometime after 6 months, so we probably won't be able to have her spayed at our current vet's clinic because we'll be moving before then. I think that the vaginitis is why Jilly licks her vulva so often, and why she needs to go out ever hour or so if she's awake, and why she doesn't pee much when she does pee, and why it's so urgent that she goes out ASAP when she gets to the door to let us know she needs out.