September 2003:
On July 11th I received a phone call from a veterinary office in Rochester MN. There had been a nine yr old westie brought in by her owners, they stated “she is sick and peeing all over the house, put her to sleep”. The Vet asked them if they would surrender her to a rescue group, they agreed (as long as they wouldn’t have to pay for any treatment). Molly underwent many test and it was discovered that she had bladder stones one of which was quite large. She also need to be updated on all of her vaccinations. Molly went home with one of the vet techs for the weekend. On Monday they called to let me know what would be necessary to treat Molly. Surgery was scheduled for Wednesday July 16th, she made it through surgery well. One of the stones was four cm x three cm, there was also four other smaller stones. The vet brought Molly up to the twin cities on Friday July 18th. My first reaction was how on earth could someone give up on such a sweet dog, she was just precious. The first day we found out that Molly wasn’t to crazy about men, she would run and hide from my husband. It took about three weeks for her to warm up to him and seek love from him. Molly had adapted quite well into our household, she got along very well with my to westies and another foster that we had, he was going to his new home the following Wednesday.
She continued to have accidents in our home, at first I attributed it to the surgery and her bladder going through a healing process. Then one morning she was lying in bed with me and urinated in her sleep and it was all over herself, she never moved. That’s when I decided that I need her to see my veterinarian. We went in and had a urine culture done, it was very dilute and also slightly basic. We did an ultrasound to make sure there were no new stones, luckily there wasn’t. But we still couldn’t explain why her urine was so dilute and the dribbling accidents. Dr. Quast recommended that we monitor her water consumption for three days starting out with no more than five cups the first day and getting down to two and three-fourths cups, which was the necessary amount for her to have. On the fourth day, she was to have no water and back to the clinic to see if she was concentrating urine. The first day was unsuccessful, she came home and was allowed 10ml/ hr the next day she went back to the clinic. She finally did it! Dr. Quast’s fear was that she may have diabetes incepidus sp? or Addison’s disease. Because Molly finally concentrated on her own we believe that it is more of an anxiety disorder that when she is nervous or alone she drinks large quantities of water thus the need to urinate more frequently. By monitoring her water consumption we have cut down on the number of accidents she has had. When we got the results of the stones back it was recommended to put her on special food for urinary tract support.
Molly went to her new home on Monday September 1, 2003, she was one of those rescues that was very difficult to let go. But, if you remember when we got Molly we had another foster, his name was Calvin, the same family adopted Molly. She is in her safe forever home. She is being treated the way a wonderful little westie should!
Bobbi Biegel Westie Rescue of Minnesota