Last week was a lousy week.  We spent a good part of the week going back and forth to the vet with our senior dogs, Thunder and Storm.

Thunder turned 10 last month and it seems old age is creeping up on him.  Oh he still looks as fit as ever but he is starting to get some old dog issues.

A couple of months ago we noticed that he had blood in his urine.  The vet did a physical exam and a urinalysis.  It was suspected that he may have a UTI or perhaps it was an issue with his prostate.  The physical exam showed that his prostate was a bit large, but not overly so for a senior intact dog and it was not painful.  The urinalysis showed blood, some crystals, but no bacteria.  Thunder was put on a round of antibiotics in case it was an infection of the prostate.

Before he finished the antibiotics we did another urinalysis that showed no blood but a trace of protein.  The vet also did an x-ray to rule out kidney stones.  The x-ray was clear of stones.  The plan was to repeat the urinalysis when Thunder had his dental which was delayed about a month after the antibiotics.

Fast forward to last week when we woke up one morning to blood all over the kitchen floor.  You know when your dog cuts a pad and spatters blood all over as they walk?  It was like that, only worse because I knew it was not a cut pad.  It was either Thunder or Storm since both sleep in the family room and have run of that area.

Based on his recent issue, I figured it was Thunder.  I hustled him to the vet first thing in the morning.

Our vet is a walk-in clinic and has several vets on the floor at any given time.  I asked which vets were seeing patients and requested that the owner of the clinic see Thunder.  I call him Old Dr. B because  he has been a vet since I was a kid.  I wanted a vet with a lot of experience.  There were other vets I would have requested, but they did not happen to be there at the time.

After examining Thunder, he ordered another urinalysis.  He was leaning toward the prostate causing the problem but he wanted to get the results of the urinalysis first which meant we had to wait a few days for results.

The results showed a lot more blood than the first urinalysis, protein,  higher white cells but no bacteria.  He said he could chalk it up to the prostate, but since there was so much blood, he felt an ultrasound of the abdomen, particularly the bladder and prostate, was in order to rule out any other issues.  Now this is getting serious.

He referred us to the local vet hospital and lucky for us they happened to have an opening last Friday and hubby was able to take Thunder.  The internist who did the ultrasound was very thorough.  She examined Thunder from tip of the nose to tip of the tail.  She was impressed by his muscle tone and condition for a 10 year old dog.  All the training and field work is paying off in his old age.  She did discover an issue with his canine where it looks like it is shoved up into his gum.  That is new and happened since the vet looked at him to schedule his dental.  We will have to take care of that soon.  We have no idea how he did it but it does not seem painful.

The ultrasound itself showed only a benign enlarged prostate.  All of his other organs were in excellent condition.  In fact she remarked they are like that of a five year old dog, no tumors, polyps, or fluid in the abdomen.  If they had seen anything suspicious they would have done a needle biopsy while he was there.  Thank goodness that was not needed.  Old Dr. B was right, it was an intact senior male dog issue.

Treatment for enlarged prostate is to have Thunder neutered or to put him on a very expensive monthly medication.  The problem with the medication is that it can decrease sperm quality so either way his breeding days would be over.  We need to discuss the results with our vet but we are fairly sure that we will have Thunder neutered, (his breeder had him collected years ago so there is frozen for future litters).  We can do the dental at the same time.  We were relieved it was nothing more serious.

I mentioned that Storm had a vet visit too.  I will have more about her visit tomorrow.  Long story short she has an injury and is on rest for now.

Despite our lousy week, we had a great weekend with beautiful weather and some fun training on Saturday.  Let’s hope that we will have smooth swimming going forward.