I took my dog to get his shots yesterday. Every year they need to draw blood and check his enzyme level. He has had seizures so they have him meds for it.

First off the woman Vet has her asst put a muzzle on him. That pissed me off but I let it slide. I figure she is afraid of dogs. 2 years ago she had her asst draw blood and she says he got a little bucky with her and the asst and asked me to muzzle him which I did. Last year and another time I had him at the clinic her husband handled him and all was fine. The asst had already drawn the blood before the woman vet came in to see him there was no need of the muzzle. *rant done*

So the woman vet calls me this morning and tells me the blood workup was fine in all areas but 2. His live is a little out of whack and she wants to put him on a different dog food. (More expensive than Wally Food no doubt.) And he protein level is down. She wants me to bring in a urine sample and they will test it.

As she continues to talk I am thinking how in the hell am I going to get a urine sample from a dog? As she is wrapping up her talk she must know what I am thinking. She says get a dixie cup and stick it on a coat hanger and put it down there when he is doing his thing.

I almost cracked up. What kind of a vet is she? A hamster vet? Stick it on a hanger and chase your dog around the yard. RIGHT!! That is going to work. Even at 11 years of age I can't keep up with him.

So coat hanger is already out of the picture. I have done worse than get dog pee on my hands. I am surprised she didn't tell me to go buy some Playtex gloves and put them on first.

So I am telling this to my wife as I am getting dressed this morning. I walk into the living room (Countywide Elections were yesterday.) and tell her I tallied the results and noticed that I lost. I am the one who gets to chase the dog with a cup. (She laughed a little.) So I decided to do a recount just to make sure I say. the vote wasn't even close. I don't know why I demanded a recount. She laughed harder.

The nice thing about having a 11 year dog is you know his habits pretty well. Even though he has a doggie door into a kennel he doesn't pee until we get home unless we are gone for a long time.

Normally I let him run in the front yard and find a spot worth his efforts. I told my wife I couldn't do that today because every neighbor who was at home would be watching me chase him around and stick that cup down and wonder what kind of a sick bastard am ?

We went out through the kennel into the backyard. I commanded him to go potty. He walked off to his backyard spot and noticed I was not standing up by the house. I was walking after him. He kept walking. he got to the back of the yard, I was still there so he turned around and headed back toward the house. I keep telling him to go potty. he keeps walking. back and forth we proceed (I was going to say "go" but that would be misleading.)

I dropped back a little ways from him. Finally he gives up and lifts his leg. I come up and stick the cup down there and get some liquid magic. I thought about taking it to the vet right then but decided this has inconvenienced me enough. Back to work I go. I will take it to the vet later today.

Damn dog is 11. I am not putting him on more meds. If his time is up I will put him down and move on.

he has been a great dog for me for these past 8 years. I hate it when they get so old.

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i was laughing picturing your quest for doggy pee pee!!!

yes it's so hard when they get old & decisions have to be made - i don't envy you one bit.

if a vet ever told me to muzzle my dog, i'd find a new damn vet. (i totally get being pissed off about that)

give him all the love he needs, feed him what you want, & let him enjoy his final years.

I have a little bit of experience with old dogs. For sure it's sad when they die, but you just have to celebrate them when they are with you. As I said in the other thread, Bubba is 15 now, named by my son when he was in 4th grade. His brother died last year. I've always let them have plenty of table scraps, bacon grease, etc. Don't believe all that shit about what ain't supposed to be good for them. Chicken bones? Bubba KNOWS a KFC box when he sees it. It worried me when he gave up dog food, because his brother did that before the end, but he has now expanded his diet to pancakes in addition to wieners. They say don't give dogs cheese, but a couple of years ago I started letting him have cheese puffs - figuring as old as he already was, it couldn't hurt too much. I've had about ten dogs die of old age in my lifetime, never less than about 12 years old, and NEVER put down by a vet, almost never even taken to vets and almost never any meds.

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yeah 4PG that is really why I was posting this. Just for the laugh of chasing a dog.
Tx PB your dogs ate well. I decided today he is done with the vets when it comes to blood workouts and such. I will continue to give him his current pills and refill them but no more vets other than routine checkups. And I will insist on the guy vet. this evening it occurred to me that the woman vet did not do a throughout exam. He always lifts his tail and checks out the rump. She didn't. He gets the flea comb and grooms him a little looking for bugs. She didn't. He looks at his eyes and nose to see if they have any signs of issues. She didn't.

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Thuji is a Lhasa Apso. As a long-hair breed (i.e., in the few weeks between "he needs a haircut" and I get around to getting him to the groomer), this means I have to be careful of his anus getting plugged because the hair catches the last bit of poop, it hardens and blocks the hole, waste backs up in the rectum, which if left apparently means a serious potential problem. To be honest, I've never wanted to be a doggie pathologist, and so I'm not going to do research on the properties of old poop stuck somewhere within the dog's body.

But I have a real good vet. So when he echoed what the breeder had said when I bought him, I just thought...'well, lets just hope that never happens, and always, always, always keep the hair trimmed around the dog's backside.'

Of course, Wade the lazy bastard procrastinator after trying a couple times to bring a scissors close to the dog's behind and maybe cutting 3 hairs out of the 10,000 that circle the dog's butt, ignore it for awhile and hope he squeezes that last bit out so as it falls to the ground instead of getting caught.

Well, Thuji, being the dumbass that he is, doesn't do this. And, Wade, the bigger dumbass, doesn't notice the buildup (it being somehow obscured from view when I dutifully did my check of the behind for however many days it sat there.

So, one morning, he goes to one of his favorite places to poop, on a street diagonally across from our high school, and less than 150 feet from where the first bus stops to load elementary school kids to bus them to the next town. (I'm convinced he thinks the little kids are going to think him cool for pooping while they watch.)

And he can't. Moves to another spot, changes direction and tries again. Same problem. Turns another time, leaving him mooning the kids hanging out one the sidewalk by the busses. Tries again. Starts to cry. (He's probably 10 months old at this time.)

So here it is, 8 a.m., me looking my usual pre-shower street person self, and I'm trying to keep the dog still (only thing that worked was to hold onto his tail) and, using the poop bag as an improvised glove, simultaneously trying to stick my finger up his ass to clear the blockage.

Of course the bag tears and I've forgotten the little roll of bags (again!) and have no backup for when, after giving me the "WTF?" look than only a dog can give, he finally walks around in a circle a couple more times and poops. And not a single bus has left when I end up picking up the poop pile and then try to pull him back toward home as he wags his tail and pulls the other way, begging to go say hi to those kids he is sure will be, like everyone, his friends.

So talk about traumatizing impressionable young kids: first, wade the creepy street person looking guy stands there torturing a puppy and fingering its backside. then he picks up the poop and pulls the poor dog back to whatever sick things he has planned.

And of course, once I got home, I still had to wash the dog's backside/clip off the hair. Fortunately, the dog was still in his "I'm a puppy who never barks" weirdness, and I didn't have to worry about them overhearing any further torture. And I still had a day of work ahead of me.

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a few years ago we were at a state park and walked past the owner who was wiping his pooch's hind end. I didn't notice nor care. My wife leaned over after we got a suitable distance away and told me that she always wanted a Lhasa Apso because they are so cute. So I am making a mental note to look for one 10 years down the road after our current dog "retires". Before I could get very far in the mental dictation she continues on "But I never want to wipe a dog's butt." I had to scratch out the mental note while she explained what I just missed.

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All too funny!
We had a Scottish Terrier years ago that I was supposed to get a urine sample from.
Let me tell you, this guy was built close to the ground and could run like Barry Sanders.
I had no chance. He made me look like a fool and of course won the game.

Our 16 year old Beagle passed on a year ago. Aside from 2 torn ACLs she was remarkably healthy throughout.

For my last birthday my wife bought me a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Great bird dog and a great house pet but at 80 lbs he pees and shits like an elephant. It's a good thing I'm retired because feeding, watering and cleaning up the yard after him is a full time job.
Oh yeah, he can run like Barry Sanders too so I'm pretty sure a urine sample from Troy is out as well.