We need a poo!

M

M.F.

We had the follow-up appointment today. No more enemas needed. The vet was very happy with what she felt along his intestines. (The recommended vet unfortunately was not in today. This is the other vet in the practice. We actually know her from years back when she was with our regular vet. She’s also great.)

The laxatives, however, have taken effect!! Everything is running out! Am I ever thankful for that! He made two well-formed poos this morning after breakfast, one ginormous. I collected them all for the vet! Rather weighty!! And stinkyyyy!! Thereafter, it’s been diarrhoea-like.

However… the X-rays (serendipitously) picked up a bladder stone. 🙁 It never ends! She took a urine sample. Will hear later if there’s an infection. But Snowie needs to start a diet for struvite crystals (basically keto to increase the acidity of his urine to dissolve the stone). Going to be challenging given what a scavenger he is.

The vet also checked his front leg limp. Says his joints are really good. Suspects an ingrown hair follicle between the pads (becomes something like a corn), can cause pain when running. Said it’s common in Labradors. Who would’ve thought!! We are to monitor how often he licks the pad of that foot.

So all in all, really happy we found this vet practice. Feels like they’re really interested in the whole dog.
 
Stacia

Stacia

Location
Malvern Worcestershire
The vet today sounded to be very good, though sorry Snowy has a bladder stone, but good to discover now so that his diet can be changed. I don't think the odd scavenge will affect it too much! Rourke is very lame LF leg, I will have a look to see if he has a 'corn' -!
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
M.F. said:
However… the X-rays (serendipitously) picked up a bladder stone. 🙁 It never ends! She took a urine sample. Will hear later if there’s an infection.
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Is he taking a long time to urinate or straining to urinate? That's what Carbon's symptoms were. We got antibiotics from a vet here in the UK, but apparently that didn't make a dent because he stopped urinating entirely on our way back to Germany. I learned that if a dog doesn't wee for three days, it can actually kill them. Or at least that's what my very worried German vet told me, then sent Carbon off for emergency surgery. I still have the bladder stones - looks like weirdly formed M&Ms (just the brown ones 😉). He made a complete recovery - if you ignore that he no longer wees out of his willy. I call it purely decorative these days.

I guess all that to say that if the diet can help down break down the single stone he has now and not form new ones, that's probably well worth the trouble of avoiding surgery that makes your willy decorative.
 
Shaz82

Shaz82

Location
Essex, U.K.
Just catching up and really glad that Snowy is on the mend, hopefully the stone will not cause any bother.
Shame I missed the opportunity to use the poo emoji :poo::poo::poo:, it's a good one.

Interesting about the hair follicle something to file in the memory bank.
 
M

M.F.

Emily_Babbelhund said:
Is he taking a long time to urinate or straining to urinate? That's what Carbon's symptoms were. We got antibiotics from a vet here in the UK, but apparently that didn't make a dent because he stopped urinating entirely on our way back to Germany. I learned that if a dog doesn't wee for three days, it can actually kill them. Or at least that's what my very worried German vet told me, then sent Carbon off for emergency surgery. I still have the bladder stones - looks like weirdly formed M&Ms (just the brown ones 😉). He made a complete recovery - if you ignore that he no longer wees out of his willy. I call it purely decorative these days.

I guess all that to say that if the diet can help down break down the single stone he has now and not form new ones, that's probably well worth the trouble of avoiding surgery that makes your willy decorative.
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I’d forgotten that Carbon has had bladder stones. (Hopefully Carbon has, too!) Do you know if they were struvite or calcium/oxolate (not sure what they call them) stones? And did he have a UTI at the same time?

Snowie has no problem weeing. He makes 2 big wees a day—after breakfast and before bedtime. And then a million markings on our walks. He does eventually run out of wee on our walks.

I’ve been reading up and asking for advice. Apparently a lot can be gained by drinking a lot of water. So Snowie is getting shredded roast chicken with lots of water—he laps up every last drop. And apparently added apple cider vinegar is also good. Plus a keto diet. Not so easy—he lurrrrrves bread.

I’ll start a bladder stones thread. Hopefully the hive mind will have lots more advice.
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
M.F. said:
I’d forgotten that Carbon has had bladder stones. (Hopefully Carbon has, too!) Do you know if they were struvite or calcium/oxolate (not sure what they call them) stones? And did he have a UTI at the same time?
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He didn't have a UTI. That's what the vet here thought it was and gave me antibiotics for it which didn't have any effect. We were close enough to returning to see his regular vet that I just ignored it for a couple weeks as he could still wee, it just took A. Really. Long. Time. That was a mistake as he stopped wee-ing entirely on our drive from the UK to Germany. I didn't realise how bad that was until I took him to the vet. Well, and I also didn't realise he wasn't wee-ing at all because he was still in the physical position to wee and I assumed SOMETHING was coming out in all that time.

I don't remember what the stones were. Neither of those sounds familiar, but then again they told me what they were in German, so the words were likely much different. His were caused by taking Allopurinol. I said they looked like deformed M&M's but really more like milk chocolate covered raisins, including color. There were probably 6-8 stones, of which 3 were quite large (like a big raisin) and the smallest like a sunflower seed.

Both my vet and I were horrified that the surgeon made the hole that she did (and used his willy as a partial anchor for the stitches - what a mess) as that was NOT the plan going into surgery. We both thought it would get dirty and infected all the time, but in fact it doesn't. He spent over a year wee-ing on his own foot as he still hikes his leg, but in general he just gets on with it. Come to think of it, he probably still wees on his own foot, I just don't notice anymore.

Main thing is that he hasn't had any issues having a wee since and man is he quick! Comes out like a waterfall now. So...win? 😁
 
M

M.F.

Emily_Babbelhund said:
He didn't have a UTI. That's what the vet here thought it was and gave me antibiotics for it which didn't have any effect.
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Did the vet not first test for an infection? My (new) vet said that the right antibiotic is essential, which is why they’re doing a needle in the bladder extraction and a culture.
 
Anne123

Anne123

Location
Vlaardingen, the Netherlands
M.F. said:
Did the vet not first test for an infection? My (new) vet said that the right antibiotic is essential, which is why they’re doing a needle in the bladder extraction and a culture.
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This is done to Finn a few years ago. He didn’t want to walk and hadn’t a wee since 24 hours. We went straight to our vet where he got painkillers and a needle extraction for a urine culture. She also took some blood. We had to wait for the results and she said that the painkiller had kicked in so try to let him pee and poo. And that’s what he did. He had a uti. As I didn’t know the procedure to have an urine culture this way I was rather shocked. But all went well
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
M.F. said:
Did the vet not first test for an infection? My (new) vet said that the right antibiotic is essential, which is why they’re doing a needle in the bladder extraction and a culture.
Click to expand...
No, he didn't even see Carbon. This was during the first spring of COVID and you could only go in if it was life or death, so it was all done with a five minute phone conversation. The antibiotics were 10 pounds per tablet too, which was very irritating for something that didn't work. That's one reason I just decided to wait until I got back to Germany, because the vet wouldn't even see him in person here. Luckily that's changed now.
 
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