That Lulu Pup

As of today Lulu has been in our lives for approximately 1 month and 1 week. She will be 4 months old next Monday and is weighing in at a healthy 18.6 pounds (according to the vet's scale last Friday) which means she has gained about 8 pounds since we got her. She is getting so big, so quickly--I can't believe it!

Since coming home with us Lu has been a typical puppy--bouncy, playful, full of mischief, cuddles, and curiosity. However she has also come with a lot of ailments. At her "wellness" appointment 3 days after we adopted her from the Humane Society the vet found that she had both hookworm and ringworm. A few days later she developed a nasty upper repiratory infection. Luckily all of this was covered through the Humane Society (who apparently partners with a local vet and will cover certain common illnesses that come with their animals for up to 2 weeks after adoption). This was fantastic for us because as most all pet owners know, these friends don't always come cheap.

One of the issues that we asked the vet about on our initial visit was about Lu's tendency to pee--a lot. We realized that she was a puppy and not house trained yet but it seemed like she was going every 15 minutes. Initially the vet told us not to worry--it probably wasn't a UTI becuase that is uncommon in puppies and she was probably just learning to control her bladder yadda, yadda. But even weeks later Lu was still having accidents and some of them were happening when she was dead asleep. Admittedly this was kind of funny at first because the first time she did it she was sleeping on Erik and it got all over him (sorry honey) but once it  got all over my new couch (!!) among other places we thought there had to be something else going on. Erik immediately made the phone call to the vet and they told us to bring her in.

Once at the vet they did a UTI test which involved using an ultrasound to locate Lu's bladder and a needle to extract some urine. All the while Erik and I were keeping our fingers crossed that this was the problem because we had admittedly committed a cardinal sin by reading about all kinds of dog incontinence issues on the internet. The doc came back with some mixed results. He said that he wasn't 100% sure that what Lu had was UTI because he didn't really see any blood or protein in her urine but he did notice something else that was a bit strange.

He said that while looking at the ultrasound to locate the bladder he noticed what he thought might have been some fluid outside of Lu's bladder. The fluid could indicate a condition called an Ectopic Urethra which is a birth defect where one ureter attaches to the bladder and the other one connects somewhere else. He proposed that if Lu has this condition it could explain why she has been having incontinence issues and has been peeing in her sleep. However, since he wasn't entirely sure this was the problem he proposed doing a radiogram (x-ray) of Lu's belly and sending it to a specialist to diagnose her properly. According to his estimate this would cost us around $500. Then, if the specialist confirms that she does indeed have an Ectopic Urethra we could opt to have it surgically fixed which would require what the vet described as a very tedious and delicate surgery (i.e. very costly). I think he could tell by our deer-in-the-headlights eyes that we were both freaking out a bit and mentioned that we could always try to seek financial help from the Humane Society but that since we were most definitely out of their 2 week care window he wasn't certain that they would help at all.

After taking a few breaths we asked the doctor if this was a life threatening condition. He assured us it was not, and that if Lu was diagnosed with it and we decided not to do surgery she would be fine and we would just have to deal with her being incontinent the rest of her life. Great. In the end we left the doctor's office with some antibiotics to treat a UTI in the hopes that the doc was wrong and that she would be better soon.

Since we've been treating her the last few days we have seen a noticeable spike in her energy level (she went from crazy to crazier within hours it seemed) and she hasn't had any accidents in her sleep. We are taking these as good signs and hope that the problem has been solved, with this whole Ectopic Urethra thing turning out to be nothing more than a one time scare. I love Lu and would never want to give her up but I have to admit that having a dog who leaks urine all over the place does not exactly thrill me (because lets face it, I hardly have $500 to diagnose her let alone pay for a costly surgery). So, fingers crossed that everything turns out okay for Miss Lu and she feels better soon.

I'm In Trouble

This weekend Erik and I adopted a puppy. Actually yesterday at apporximately 5pm we adopted a puppy. We named her Lulu.

Before I go any further I feel like I need to give a little background on my relationship with dogs. First,  I have never owned a dog, grown up with a dog, and have never lived with a roommate who had a dog. I have friends who own dogs and my sister has a dog but other than occasional visits my time spent around dogs has been limited. Second, I know absolutely nothing about training them or caring for them other than the basics like taking them for walks and giving them food. Third, I have never been what I consider to be a "dog person." Sure I think they are cute and I have known some really sweet ones, but I have never dreamt of owning a dog or even pictured myself as a dog owner.

Now that I have said that, you are probably wondering (given my past history) how the heck I ended up with a dog this weekend. Well, in a way this was an unplanned pregnancy. Erik and I have been discussing getting a dog for awhile. He grew up with dogs and his parents have 3 at their house (who Erik is crazy about). I was amenable to the idea because I thought having a dog around the house would be good protection. My neighborhood isn't bad per se, but there are the occasional break ins (I do live in the city of Atlanta after all) and I felt like a dog would be a good deterrant to potential criminals.

We had a lot of discussions about what kind of dog we would want to get and I was pretty insistent that if we got any dog it would have to be a rescue. For awhile we were looking online and checking out the dogs up for adoption at the local Petsmart or PetCo on weekends when I would need to pop in and buy food for the cats. I don't think either of us ever saw animal that particularly struck us so we would move on and that would be that.

Yesterday we were out running errands and I noticed Erik driving a different way to get out of the shopping plaza we were in. I asked if he needed to make a stop by Target (which was the direction we were headed) but he said he just wanted to drive by PetCo to see if there were any dogs outside waiting to be adopted. I'm not sure what made me say it but I blurted out, "well you know if you want to look at dogs we can always go by the Atlanta Humane Society." I fully expected him to say something like "yeah,we could but not today" but instead he put the address into his gps and off we went.

Of course the conversation on the way over there went something like this:

Erik: "You know we can't adopt a dog today."
Me: "Yeah totally. We do not need to get a dog today."

Chuckle, chuckle.

So we get to the Atlanta Humane Society (which is very nice by the way) and head over to look at the dogs in the kennels. Talk about heartbreaking. It was like walking through puppy jail. Don't get me wrong, the dogs were well taken care of but they all just looked so lonely and sad. Then we went into a separate room, which I'll call the "puppy room" where there were all kinds of little guys playing and waiting to be adopted. This room was a much happier place. Erik and I made our way over to this one bin where there was a litter of about 6 puppies. I had looked online prior to our arrival and had taken a liking to one puppy in particular and I saw her amongst this litter. Sadly, she was adopted just minutes after we had first walked in the door.

As we were studying the other pups from the same litter a couple walks over to put one that they were holding back into the bin. They asked if I wanted to hold her and I took one look at her sweet face and said of course. She was the only brindle-coated puppy of the litter and she immediately began licking me all over and curled up in my arms. Needless to say, I didn't want to put her down. It wasn't minutes later before Erik was filling out the paperwork for adoption and an hour or so later we were walking to the car with our new puppy.

Talk about an unexpected afternoon!

So here are the basic stats on our new dog:
Name: Lulu
Sex: Female
Birthday: around May 12, 2011 (which means she is a little more than 2 1/2 months old)
Breed: American Pit Bull Terrier/Labrador Retriver Mix
Weight: 9 pounds
Coloring: Brindle (black/brown/tan zebra-like pattern)

She has been really sweet so far. She's definitely had a few "accidents" in the house but that's to be expected until she is potty-trained. She slept pretty good last night--only cried for a little bit and then was out for about 4 hours. Erik got up around 4:30 to take her out and neither of us could go back to sleep (even though she did) so I am pretty exhausted. Erik stayed home with her today and I feel better knowing that he is there as she adjusts to her first full day in her new home.

All in all I would say I am excited for this adventure. I'm still very nervous about being a dog owner (I have these fears that my dog is going to be that bad dog that everyone hates to be around) but I've been reading a lot about lab/pit mixes and everyone says they make great dogs--very loyal, loving, and smart--so that makes me relax a bit. I was also worried about how my cats would take to the new addition but they seem to be doing better than I expected and, with a bit of adjustment, I think everything will work out okay in that department.

So that's that. I have a dog and her name is Lulu. She is adorable, sweet, playful, and has definitely captured my heart. So yes, I'm in trouble. Big trouble.



Meet Lulu!